What happened in the Gerry Kelly libel case?

Remind me, what is all this about?

Before we get to the what, let’s look at the who: Gerry Kelly, now a Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Belfast and one of the party’s highest-profile figures in the North, and the freelance journalist and commentator Malachi O’Doherty.

In 1983, Kelly – a convicted IRA bomber – was part of a mass breakout of prisoners from the Maze/Long Kesh prison outside Belfast, during which one prison officer died and another was shot.

In 2020, he issued a writ claiming damages for libel in respect to two radio interviews conducted by O’Doherty with the BBC and U105 in 2019, in which he said Kelly had shot a prison officer.

Kelly claimed this had “gravely damaged in his character and reputation” and called his standing as an elected public representative into “disrepute”.

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So what happened this week?

That claim was roundly rejected by the Master of Belfast’s High Court, Evan Bell, who struck out the defamation action as “scandalous, frivolous and vexatious” and a “blatant” abuse of process.

Given that in one of Kelly’s own books he “admits that during the escape he was armed with a gun and threatened to shoot a police officer, it was therefore scandalous and vexatious for Mr Kelly in such circumstances to claim damages for defamation”, he said.

Questioning why the case was taken in the first place, he said the proceedings “bear all the hallmarks of a Slapp [strategic lawsuit against public participation] and have been initiated not for the genuine purposes of vindicating a reputation injured by defamatory statements but rather for the purpose of stifling the voices of his troublesome critics”.

In response, Kelly said it was a “substantive judgment and I will take time to study it with my legal adviser”.

Great name – tell me more about these Slapps

A UK government policy paper defined them in 2023 as “legal actions typically brought by corporations or individuals with the intention of harassing, intimidating and financially or psychologically exhausting opponents via improper use of the legal system”.

In November, following a lawsuit lodged against The Irish Times and its journalist Harry McGee by Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews in November, organisations supporting the freedom of speech and freedom of the press wrote to the Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou McDonald, to express its concern that “legal actions that Sinn Féin’s members are currently taking against the media have the hallmarks of Slapps” and pointed to a “co-ordinated campaign against the media in Ireland”.

[ Gerry Kelly facing legal bill of at least £150,000 after ‘frivolous’ libel action ]

This has been rejected by the party, most recently by the North’s First Minister designate and Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill, who told reporters this week: “I can assure you there is no joined-up, concerted effort to silence anybody, but I do defend anybody’s right to defend their own name.

“In terms of any cases that are taken, these are taken on people’s individual basis. It’s not about Sinn Féin supporting these cases, it’s about individuals defending their own names.”

What about the fallout from this?

A potentially a large legal bill for Kelly, for one thing; leading Belfast media lawyer Paul Tweed estimated the total costs faced by Kelly could run to at least £150,000.

The robust response from the Northern court has raised questions as to whether it will deter others from taking such cases in the future. It has also cast a spotlight on Slapps and the prospect of legislation to combat them; this is included in the Defamation Bill, which aims to reform Ireland’s defamation laws.