GEMMA O’DOHERTY has appeared before the High Court after being arrested by Gardaí. She has been accused of being in contempt of court and failing to comply with an injunction that was obtained by Edel Campbell, who has brought proceedings against O’Doherty over her involvement in the use of images of her deceased son. 

Ms O Doherty was brought before Mr Justice Conor Dignam at the High Court today following her arrest by members of an Garda Siochana.

She was released from Garda custody following the hearing.

The judge agreed to adjourn the application which could see Ms O’Doherty jailed over her alleged failure to comply with the terms of an injunction obtained by Edel Campbell, to later this week.

This is to allow her to obtain instructions and have her lawyer present in court, and to obtain all the relevant legal documents in the case.

Under the terms of the injunction, which is to remain in place pending the full outcome of the proceedings Ms O’Doherty is restrained from harassing or intimidating her, and from disclosing any confidential information about Ms Campbell and her family.

The injunction was granted as part of proceedings Ms Campbell has brought against Ms O’Doherty, over the use of the image of her deceased son, Diego Gilsenan, in the “Irish Light” newspaper, which is edited by Ms O’Doherty.

Ms O’Doherty was ordered to remove Mr Gilsenen’s images from any media platforms under the defendant’s control, or from publishing any images of herself and her family on any medium.

It is claimed that in a series of video posts by Ms O’Doherty last year the defendant has made statements in clear disregarding and in breach of the court’s orders.

This led to the application against Ms O’Doherty over her alleged contempt.

On Wednesday Ms O’Doherty who appeared before the court without her legal representative being present, or without any court documents told the judge she had never harassed anyone in her life, or that she had ever met Ms Campbell.

She said that she was defamed and her good name had been damaged and she had been defamed by Ms Campbell in a radio interview broadcast by RTE.

She described the injunction against, which was not appealed, as being unlawful and said that she was not prepared to comply with it.

She said that the plaintiff’s complaints are an attempt to prevent her from doing her job as “an award winning” investigative reporter who cares about persons whose deaths have been “covered up.”

She told the judge that “if you do jail me, it would be jailing me for being an investigative journalist, I would not like to be in your shoes” adding that such an action would make news all over the world.”

She said the injunction should never have been granted.

She claimed the law which prevents the third party funding of legal actions, known as ‘champerty and maintenance’ has been broken by the plaintiff.

She said that a fundraiser allegedly for legal expenses had been organised for Ms Campbell that raised over €24,000 and she had reported the matter to the Gardai.
Many of the donors to this fundraiser were anonymous, Ms O’Doherty added. 

Ms Campbell, Ms Doherty added, had said in that interview that the defendant “hated” her. Ms Doherty said that she didn’t hate anybody.

It was accepted that she had published “a postage stamp sized picture of the plaintiff’s late son, but said it was part of a story investigating the sudden deaths of young people in Ireland.

Ms O’Doherty said that after receiving complaints from Ms Campbell she decided to probe Mr Gilsenen’s death, stating that she believes the inquest into the death was “shambolic”, and that persons including Ms Campbell had questions to answer, and that the case raised issues about drug dealing.

She also claimed in the court that she believes that Ms Campbell is being used by other parties.

Ms O’Doherty also said that she had posted a copy of the coroner’s report into Mr Gilsenen’s death, which she said is a public document and something the court could not direct her to remove.

David Kennedy SC, with Paul Comiskey O’Keeffe Bl, instructed by solicitor Ciaran Mulholland for Ms Campbell, told the court that his client wanted “nothing more” than for Ms O’Doherty to comply with the injunction.

However the defendant had refused to do so leaving his client with “no option” other than bring the motion alleging contempt.

The matter had been before the court on many previous occasions, and Ms O’Doherty had opted not to attend in person.

At this stage Ms O’Doherty was well aware of what the application is about, counsel said.
Counsel said that his client was not complaining about the positing of the inquest outcome, but it is their case that the commentary about his client, clearly amounted to harassment of Ms Campbell.

Counsel, when rejecting all of Ms O’Doherty’s claims, said it was “news to me” that a Garda investigation was underway regarding the fund raiser.

Counsel said that given the amount of times Ms Campbell’s legal team have had to appear before the courts in respect of the matter, they were effectively working on a pro-bono basis.

Ms Campbell has sued Ms O’Doherty over the alleged unauthorised publication of the image of the plaintiff’s late son following his death in 2021.

She claims Ms O’Doherty has wrongly and unlawfully used the image in an article on media controlled by Ms O’Doherty allegedly linking unexplained deaths to the Covid-19 vaccination.

Ms Campbell secured an injunction restraining Ms O’Doherty from harassing the plaintiff, or from publishing Ms Campbell’s and her late son’s images or any personal confidential material about them.

Ms O’Doherty is also restrained from encouraging or inciting others to intimidate the plaintiff.

Ms O’Doherty was also ordered to remove any image of the plaintiff and her late son from any form of media that she owns or operates.

The plaintiff claims Ms O’Doherty is a journalist and the publisher of The Irish Light, a free periodical newspaper, and the publisher/editor of the www.irishlightpaper.com website.

Ms Campbell, from Kingscourt, Co Cavan, claims that despite making several pleas to Ms O’Doherty to cease using her son’s image, the defendant refused to do so.

Ms Campbell further claims that the unauthorised and repeated use of her son’s image amounts to harassment and a breach of her constitutional rights.

She claims that it has caused her emotional pain, suffering and harm.

Ms O’Doherty rejects all of the allegations of wrongdoing made against her and says that she removed the image as a gesture of goodwill.