The verdict isn’t the calamity which gloomier searchers for truth and other investigators may fear. It will have a limited effect. Media managers and their journalists must hold their nerve. In an assessment of the likely fallout, it’s significant that BBC HQ have left the initial corporate response to the Belfast management.
In their case the BBC did not plead justification for believing Adams sanctioned Donaldson’s murder. Rather, it argued that publishing the allegation was credible, on the grounds that his reputation would not have suffered because of the widely held rejection of his denial that he had been an – or the- IRA commander.
But the judge called this argument ” guff” and not a matter the jury would have to decide. Rather, he accepted reputations moved with time. Adams became a peacemaker by 1998. This was surely the crucial factor, likely to impress a young Dublin jury not steeped in the Troubles.
Crucially, Donaldsons’ murder took place in the new era of ” Peace” after the great GFA watershed of 1998. Without direct evidence of Adams’ endorsement, even reporting the claim without hard evidence was likely to fail. (Surely the IRA would have wanted to keep him.clean anyway, unless he was still the active Godfather? The claim, if it meant formal approval, always struck me as implausible, other than at best, a gruesome ” do you mind if we nut him?”).
Even if a former IRA close associate like Brendan Hughes had been available, he would not have been admitted in evidence, just as happened to Donaldson’s daughter. The case focused almost exclusively on the projection of Adams’ view of himself. They took him at his word, a perhaps remarkable decision for one so involved in whatever form in the machinations of a secretive violent revolutionary movement .
Ms Donalson is plainly not reconciled to the verdict. She is now calling for a public inquiry which may incidentally embarrass Sinn Fein because of the continuing family connection.
The Bel Tel’s Suzanne Breen argues the case should have been settled long ago. Someone else claims Adams would have settled with an apology in 2016. But that would have handed victory to Adams on a plate. So the BBC were at the mercy of an Adams challenge they were bound to accept.
The story isn’t over. Adams is expected to appear in the High Court in London for the defence in a civil case taken by IRA victims in London where a battery of security forces and civil society witnesses will testify to his involvement in responsibility for those bombings. Their lawyer insists the Dublin case offers no precedent: historic reputational evidence will be admitted and unlike in Dublin there will be no jury.
How much does the Adams controversy really matter? Unionists will continue to cite Adams as evidence of their basic insincerity over reconciliation and republicans will claim unionists are seizing on any excuse not to move on. In the sharp end of dealing with the past, it could have a further chilling effect to stiffen omerta among ex paramilitaries except in those few cases where there is intimate private contact between victim or family and perpetrator. It may not make the job of the Legacy Commission’s investigator any easier. The London case will be watched carefully for the prospect of more civil cases at home , also with Omagh in mind , incidentally featuring the same lawyers. Jean McConville daughter says she’s abandoning her civil case in the light of the Adams verdict.
Will the BBC ‘s reputation suffer? Unless I’ve missed something, the usual suspects in London haven’t pounced. They hate Adams more than they hate the BBC. The British public don’t care, unlike serious stuff like celebs’ sexual abuse. People in both parts of Ireland will continue to believe what they want to believe amid a growing feeling of wanting to move on from antique figures like Adams.
In Dublin no defamation cases without hard evidence have succeeded before a jury.
Talk about blocking the BBC signal to the Republic is alarmist bonkers. Adams,’ thrust that “the British Broadcasting Corporation” reflects the ethos of the British state” i.e. government policy is guff easy to disprove. Spotlight and other outlets will continue to do great investigations. Journalism is making a huge impact on legacy exposure with little challenge from the accused. The encouraging thing is that Adams despite his prominence as a sort of negative Spartacus, is a special case in more ways than one.
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
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