THE HIGH Court has refused to grant an order cutting short the time for RTÉ to file its defence to claims the broadcaster libelled a missionary priest in a recent Prime Time Investigatesprogramme concerning alleged abuse of children and teenagers in Africa by Irish missionaries.
Fr Kevin Reynolds, a member of the Mill Hill Missionaries and acting parish priest of Ahascragh, Co Galway, says he is prepared to undergo a paternity test to prove his innocence of claims against him in the programme Mission to Prey, broadcast on RTÉ One on May 23rd last.
Fr Reynolds claims the programme wrongly accused him of raping an underage girl when she was a maid in a house which he had frequented while in Africa, and also wrongly alleged he fathered a child by that girl.
He has assented to a request from the Mill Hill Missionaries Society superiors, together with the Bishop of Elphin, to step down from his ministry in Ahascragh and leave his home as a result of the very serious “false accusations” levelled against him by RTÉ pending an investigation, according to court documents.
Lawyers for Fr Reynolds secured permission from the High Court this week to apply yesterday for an order requiring RTÉ to file its defence within 14 days of the filing of the statement of claim in the libel proceedings.
Yesterday, Frank Callanan SC, for Fr Reynolds, said his client, aged 65, was out of his home and ministry, and despondent over how his name had been damaged among his parishioners. It was imperative the case was brought on with a good deal of dispatch.
The allegations made were very serious, counsel said. RTÉ could not use the paternity test issue as a means of “stringing out the proceedings”, he added.
Opposing the application, David Keane SC, for RTÉ, said it was an unprecedented application. A very large number of libel cases come before the courts which were also serious and there was nothing exceptional about this case to justify the order sought, counsel said.
Mr Keane argued counsel for Fr Reynolds was confusing the seriousness of the allegations with an urgency for the case to be heard. There was no reason this defamation case should be treated any differently from others in procedural terms. The case would require that witnesses be brought from another continent, he added.
The plaintiff had requested the paternity test and RTÉ had put in place arrangements for that, he said. RTÉ was not using the paternity test to obstruct the litigation.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Seán Ryan said there was nothing exceptional about the case which would allow him abridge time for the filing of a defence. The issue was whether the case should be given a special category over and above other defamation cases, he said.
There was a risk of giving the impression he had a particular view about the merits of the case if it was isolated from others and “shepherded” through specified procedures.
RTÉ did not have to produce a good reason for why the usual rules should be followed, and the rights of both parties would be best preserved by adherence to the rules, he said. He would refuse the application and the case could proceed in the normal way.
If RTÉ failed to file a defence within the 28 days, it was open to Fr Reynolds to make an application during the courts summer vacation sittings, the judge added.