A Sunday Times article alleging a television programme was a hoax had destroyed the documentary maker's life and career, the High Court was told. Mr Sean McPhilemy, who made the programme for Channel 4 about collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, had had his reputation badly damaged by the article in May 1993, and it had destroyed his livelihood and ability to support his family, his counsel, Mr James Price QC, said. Mr Price said Mr McPhilemy wanted to clear his name. There was no worse offence for a journalist than producing a hoax television programme.
"Mr McPhilemy will say [in evidence] that the accusation, even the suspicion, that he produced a hoax programme had destroyed his life," said Mr Price.
Mr McPhilemy's company, Box Productions, had effectively been wiped out. The allegation was a "gross slur".
The article, with the headline "Film on Ulster death squads a hoax, says missing witness", stated that the programme makers "stand accused of producing little more than a collage of unsubstantiated rumours and fabrications, condemned by the very man whose identity they went to court to protect".
In the article, the witness who appeared without identification on the programme, Mr James Sands, described the programme as a hoax and claimed he was tricked into appearing.
Referred to only as Source A in the article, he also "claimed he was promised £5,000 to recite a prepared script about events on which he had heard rumours but about which he had no personal knowledge".
Mr Price said Mr McPhilemy was convinced to this day that Mr Sands was telling the truth in the programme.
There was no need for the jury to make a decision on whether Mr Sands was telling the truth, but whether Mr McPhilemy was honest or was a party to paying a witness to recite a script.
"We say you needn't decide whether Mr Sands is telling the truth, the question is was Mr McPhilemy dishonest" Mr Price said.
The newspaper could not prove Mr McPhilemy made a hoax programme. What powerful organisations like the Sunday Times sometimes did was to try to prove something else, such as that Mr Sands was not telling the truth or journalists were not as careful as they should have been or debate the rights and wrongs of a book Mr McPhilemy wrote in 1998 which was published in the US. This was because of the libel laws in Britain as the book named alleged members of the committee. What mattered was whether the Sunday Times article was true, Mr Price said.