BBC reporter denies excluding ‘unhelpful comments’ about Adams claim

A BBC reporter has denied excluding “unhelpful comments” and contradictions to the claim that Gerry Adams sanctioned the killing of a spy.

Speaking in a Dublin court, Jennifer O’Leary said she took the “utmost care and responsibility” with the allegation that Mr Adams had sanctioned the killing of former Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson.

She denied that she “yanked” out other statements from a programme to make the allegation against Mr Adams “a bit bigger”.

Mr Adams is suing the BBC in the High Court over what he has called a “grievous smear” in a documentary that alleged he sanctioned the killing of a Sinn Fein administrator revealed to be a British spy.

He claims a BBC Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of Mr Donaldson.

He denies any involvement.

Mr Donaldson was shot dead in 2006, months after admitting he was a police and MI5 agent for 20 years.

In 2009 the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing, and the Spotlight programme was broadcast in September 2016 while a garda investigation into the matter was ongoing.

In the programme, an anonymous source identified as “Martin”, who says he was an informant for Special Branch within the IRA, claimed that the shooting was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the IRA and that Mr Adams “gives the final say”.

The BBC has said the claim was corroborated by five other sources.

Under cross examination by Mr Adams’ barrister, Tom Hogan SC, Spotlight reporter Ms O’Leary said that in the months after the interview with Martin was recorded, she held 60 meetings with sources and was “non-stop on the road”.

She told the court on Wednesday that she had spoken to security sources on both sides of the border, and that she met seven sources from An Garda Siochana, including “serving, senior” Garda sources.

She rejected the suggestion from Mr Hogan that information was omitted from the programme, including a statement from the Donaldson family blaming security forces for his killing, because it contradicted or took away from “the allegation that you really wanted to make” about Gerry Adams.

“There was no allegation that I really wanted to make,” she said.

Judge Alexander Owens said Mr Hogan was suggesting that a statement from the Donaldson family was “yanked” out to make the allegation against Mr Adams “a bit bigger”.

“No, that is not true,” Ms O’Leary said, adding that they had “sought to engage” with the Donaldson family.

Mr Hogan suggested that she had “excluded unhelpful comments that contradicted what you wanted to say”.

Ms O’Leary said that the Donaldson family statement “wasn’t excluded because it wasn’t helpful”, but because she had not spoken to the Donaldson family and that part of the programme was “based on sources that I spoke to”.

Mr Hogan asked about early versions of the script which included claims that a named republican had been involved in Mr Donaldson’s death.

He suggested it was taken out as it was “inconsistent with the allegation you wanted to make” about Mr Adams. Ms O’Leary said as the summer went on, she met more sources and there was “further detail I learned about the allegation and Mr Adams”.

“It was in the public interest to include the Adams allegation,” she told the court, and added: “Was I to ignore it?”

She said there was a need to “systematically and rigorously” test the allegation, which is why she was on the road “non-stop” for months and had met Martin 10 times by the time the programme was broadcast.

“I went out of my way to meet as many people and sources as I could.”

When Mr Hogan suggested that the other anonymous sources she met were “dubious” and were only asked to confirm allegations, Ms O’Leary said she rejected her sources being called “dubious”.

She said that if anyone had said “stop”, she would have listened to what they said.

“I’m not sitting there like a robot and not challenging them during those conversations,” she said.

Asked why she did not put the Adams allegation to Garda sources she met, she said that it was made “explicitly clear that they were focused on the trigger men”.

Asked if she was suggesting they had no interest in the claim, she said she was “careful with a serious allegation” and said her understanding was that investigators were “focused on the trigger men”.

Asked if she had given up on trying to verify the allegation by Martin, Ms O’Leary said: “I never gave up.”

Ms O’Leary was also asked why she did not put the allegation to the former head of the Special Branch Raymond White.

She said it was because he had left the organisation in 2002, before Mr Donaldson was killed.

She said she wanted to be “fair” to Mr Adams by putting the “serious” allegation about him to sources with experience in the IRA or sources who would have seen the intelligence at the time of Donaldson’s death.

“I have nothing to hide, I have sources to protect.”

When Mr Hogan said it’s not clear from her notes whether Ms O’Leary had “put words into people’s mouths”, she said that was “an outrageous suggestion”.

Referring to the Spotlight programme, Mr Hogan said Martin “didn’t offer the name of Gerry Adams” and it was Ms O’Leary who “led him to identify” the person.

“I refute that,” Ms O’Leary said.

Ms O’Leary was also asked by Mr Hogan if she was aware of a dissident who was a suspect in the Garda investigation into Mr Donaldson’s killing.

She said she asked her source Martin about dissidents, “but not a specific dissident”.

“The more months that I had, the more credible sources were telling me that Gerry Adams had given the final say or it was their belief that he had given the final say.”

Asked about challenging her sources on their claims, Ms O’Leary said that all sources that “formed the scaffolding” around the Martin allegation were questioned about how the Provisional IRA could be behind the killing when the Real IRA had claimed it.

She said the idea that such claims would be taken as the “absolute bible” were “ridiculous” and said she questioned the agenda and angle of what she was told.

She said that she had to be “paranoid and checking all of the time”.

Asked about the right of reply given to Mr Adams, where he was asked on September 13 to reply by September 16, Ms O’Leary said that was a “standard time frame”.

She said the BBC were “not duty bound” to give Mr Adams the detail on who had made the allegation about him.

She said a reply from Mr Adams denying the allegations arrived the morning the programme was due to be broadcast, and said it did not threaten legal action nor did it say not to go to air.

She said the programme would have been “very difficult” to air if they had not received the denial.

“I don’t think it would have been fair to broadcast the programme in the absence of his denial,” she said, adding that this was on the basis of “fair editorial responsibility”.

She said an editorial decision was made to broadcast the programme including Mr Adams’ denial.

The trial continues on Thursday.