A 33-year-old man defamed and persecuted a family by sending letters containing malicious allegations, making constant anonymous phone calls and daubing offensive slogans accusing the father of sexual abuse, simply because he objected to the erection of a B&B sign in a garden.
He also made false orders to oil companies and septic tank services in the name of his victims and spray-painted in six-inch letters on a prominent town wall that a daughter in the family was a lesbian.
The man, who told gardai he believed his own family B&B business had been threatened by the erection of the sign, has been ordered to pay separate damages of £30,000 each to the man and wife who took the defamation action.
Judge Harvey Kenny, who heard the case under his jurisdiction in the Western Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, requested that neither the names of the victims nor the location of events be published, in order to save the family further trauma.
The investigating sergeant in the matter informed the court that the defendant had already been convicted of the offence of unlawful and illegal activity at a District Court hearing of the case. He had pleaded guilty to 36 separate offences.
He was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment and released after six months. The District Court judge presiding over the case had directed that there be no publication of the case at that time.
The defendant was eventually detected after gardai followed himi on several occasions as he drove from town to town, posting letters in different boxes on the way.
When the sergeant initially approached him he denied making the phone calls. He only admitted the offences subsequently in the Garda station, when evidence against him was provided.
Mr John McCormack, representing the defendant, said his client wished to apologise profusely for the hurt he had caused the family. Mr John Jordan, for the plaintiffs, said the victims were seeking an injunction preventing the defendant from going anywhere near the family again, which Judge Kenny approved.
The judge directed that damages of £30,000 be paid out in each of the two suits of defamation, with costs, and also directed that the Western Health Board file on the case be sent to the Circuit Court office.
He granted a stay of £20,000 on each of the civil decrees, but not on the costs.