Liam Lawlor is dead

HelterSkelter

Ha, checkout the pdf of yesterday's Indo, they have wiped the story and now the page is half blank. A whitewash!!

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/frontpagepdfs/2005/13173.pdf

MrJoeSoap

HelterSkelter wrote:

Ha, checkout the pdf of yesterday's Indo, they have wiped the story and now the page is half blank. A whitewash!!

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/frontpagepdfs/2005/13173.pdf

Thats incredible. What a bunch of cowards.

copacetic

Sleepy wrote:

As for the details of his companion; interpreter, my arse. I'll take the word of the Moscow police over the press secretary of the Irish embassy who no doubt owed favours to the golden circle Lawlor belonged to.

this has now been cleared up by all the papers and all sources who she was and why she was there, how can you not believe that?

jimmycrackcorm

Sleepy wrote:

As for the details of his companion; interpreter, my arse. I'll take the word of the Moscow police over the press secretary of the Irish embassy who no doubt owed favours to the golden circle Lawlor belonged to.

The irony surrounding your comment is simply beautiful.

You trust the comments of a corrupt police force over the Irish embassy on the whimsical basis that Lawlor was somehow linked to the embassy - let alone that the Embassy would have nothing to gain from saying this.

I think that the Sunday World are scum for publishing their front-page article without ascertaining the facts. Remember it is not Liam Lawlor that suffers from that but his family. To add a front-page untruth to the grief must give great suffering to his family.

Judging by your comments I'd likely assume you'd be the type of person to make a link between an older businessman and a younger travelling companion and put 2 and 2 together to 22.

The papers should be made to devote as much space to their apology as to the inital headline. They get away with anything by just putting an apology into a two inch square column space. I'd like to see the front headline on next weeks sunday world say: "Our Journalist is a muppet".

No matter what Lawlor did, and I don't think any of us disupte that he did wrong; his family don't deserve this shoddy treatment by the media.

MrJoeSoap

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

I think that the Sunday World are scum for publishing their front-page article without ascertaining the facts. Remember it is not Liam Lawlor that suffers from that but his family. To add a front-page untruth to the grief must give great suffering to his family.

I missed the Sunday papers bar the Indo, what did the Sunday World headline say?

Sleepy

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

The irony surrounding your comment is simply beautiful.

You trust the comments of a corrupt police force over the Irish embassy on the whimsical basis that Lawlor was somehow linked to the embassy - let alone that the Embassy would have nothing to gain from saying this.

Well, given that the police force would have nothing to gain from their statement and the Embassy might have, yes, I would.

The notion that as high profile a figure as Lawlor would have business dealings in Moscow and not have contact with the Embassy is far more whimsical than the suggestion that the Embassy are attempting to clean up the story for the sake of the man's wife, family and friends.

Judging by your comments I'd likely assume you'd be the type of person to make a link between an older businessman and a younger travelling companion and put 2 and 2 together to 22.

If the man is widely known to be a frequenter of houses of ill repute is with his "travelling companion" in the red-light district of a city famous for prostitution it's not an unfair assumption.

RainyDay

Now that the Indo have withdrawn their scurrilous allegation and apologised for same, I presume that all those who jumped on this bandwagon are busy drafting their own apology posts?

Sleepy

Eh, sorry, I'm still not believing that the Indo's story was untrue. TBH, the whole thing smacks of revisionism. The allegation was far from scurrilous imho and let's face it, given the unapologetic nature of the recently departed, even if is untrue, it can hardly be claimed that an apology is in order.

RainyDay

Sleepy wrote:

Eh, sorry, I'm still not believing that the Indo's story was untrue. TBH, the whole thing smacks of revisionism. The allegation was far from scurrilous imho and let's face it, given the unapologetic nature of the recently departed, even if is untrue, it can hardly be claimed that an apology is in order.

Classy - please do let me know if you are terminally ill, so I can start preparing the wild allegations I can fire at your family once you pop your clogs.

I'm not suggesting that you apologise to LL, but a brief apology to his wife & kids would show real class.

Sleepy

Or, in short: I'll apologise to Lawlor when he apologises to this country...

copacetic

Sleepy wrote:

Eh, sorry, I'm still not believing that the Indo's story was untrue. TBH, the whole thing smacks of revisionism. The allegation was far from scurrilous imho and let's face it, given the unapologetic nature of the recently departed, even if is untrue, it can hardly be claimed that an apology is in order.

?? so even when all the scummiest of scum in the press, all the tabloids and the indo admit they were totally wrong and had no facts to back up any
part of the story you can't?

i.e you believed all the crap to begin with based on terrible reporting and now even when these terrible reporters admit they are wrong, NOW you don't believe them? Maybe you should have been a bit more careful about what to believe to begin with..

Sleepy

RainyDay wrote:

Classy - please do let me know if you are terminally ill, so I can start preparing the wild allegations I can fire at your family once you pop your clogs.

I'm not suggesting that you apologise to LL, but a brief apology to his wife & kids would show real class.

If I rob this country on the scale that Lawlor did, pervert the course of justice, remain completely unapologetic for my actions and develop a terminal illness, you have my full permission to fire any allegations you like at me. We'll leave out the "wild" bit because, let's face it, the allegations were far from wild. Actually, what the hell let's leave it there because I'm not a scumbag like Lawlor anyway and this ain't gonna happen. You can even quote this post in your slander campaign.

If you'd read my initial post, I said that I feel sympathy for his wife and kids. That sympathy does not extend to dishonesty though. I'm not sorry the man is dead so I'm not going to disrespect his surviving family by saying that I am. In fact, if as I predicted earlier, it saves the taxpayer's money, I believe it's a bloody good thing that he's dead.

alleepally

Sleepy wrote:

Or, in short: I'll apologise to Lawlor when he apologises to this country...

Try to put aside the "Liam Lawlor is the devil" argument for a second (and to be honest, there is a hell of a lot worse has happened in this country over the years)

You cannot be so blinded by your hatred of this one man that you would actually take the side of the rag that is the Sunday Indo. They got it wrong, it has been acknowledged. It's a disgrace that ANY family should have their personal tragedy used to sell more newspapers. SICK SICK SICK..

alleepally

Sleepy wrote:

If I rob this country on the scale that Lawlor did, pervert the course of justice, remain completely unapologetic for my actions and develop a terminal illness, you have my full permission to fire any allegations you like at me. We'll leave out the "wild" bit because, let's face it, the allegations were far from wild. Actually, what the hell let's leave it there because I'm not a scumbag like Lawlor anyway and this ain't gonna happen. You can even quote this post in your slander campaign.

If you'd read my initial post, I said that I feel sympathy for his wife and kids. That sympathy does not extend to dishonesty though. I'm not sorry the man is dead so I'm not going to disrespect his surviving family by saying that I am. In fact, if as I predicted earlier, it saves the taxpayer's money, I believe it's a bloody good thing that he's dead.

Seeing as you are on a crusade against corruption can you mount a campaign to ensure that the heads of the various banks that encouraged customers to evade tax in the 80's are brought to justice too...

and while you are at it could we have a reform of the system that allows the super wealthy pay no tax at all.

and while you're doing that can you go in and sort out the HUGE inefficiencies in the public service that drains far more money from the taxpayer than 1,000 Liam Lawlors would ever do.

Thanks a million.

alleepally

and before I forget.

Can you see if Denis O'Brien can be persuaded to honour his word on the late late show that he would pay his fair share of tax on his windfall after selling Digifone. Think it was a cool 300 mill he went to Portugal with.

How many Liam Lawlor's is that? hmmm, probably a couple of 1,000?

RainyDay

Sleepy wrote:

If I rob this country on the scale that Lawlor did, pervert the course of justice, remain completely unapologetic for my actions and develop a terminal illness, you have my full permission to fire any allegations you like at me. We'll leave out the "wild" bit because, let's face it, the allegations were far from wild. Actually, what the hell let's leave it there because I'm not a scumbag like Lawlor anyway and this ain't gonna happen. You can even quote this post in your slander campaign.

If you'd read my initial post, I said that I feel sympathy for his wife and kids. That sympathy does not extend to dishonesty though. I'm not sorry the man is dead so I'm not going to disrespect his surviving family by saying that I am. In fact, if as I predicted earlier, it saves the taxpayer's money, I believe it's a bloody good thing that he's dead.

No-one is suggesting that you say that you're sorry that he is dead. Anyone with a half-decent set of ethical values would expect that you apologise for the factually incorrect statements in your earlier posts. Don't expect anyone to take your 'sympathy for wife & kids' seriously when you won't apologise for or withdraw your incorrect posts.

adonis

Sleepy wrote:

If I rob this country on the scale that Lawlor did, pervert the course of justice, remain completely unapologetic for my actions and develop a terminal illness, you have my full permission to fire any allegations you like at me. We'll leave out the "wild" bit because, let's face it, the allegations were far from wild. Actually, what the hell let's leave it there because I'm not a scumbag like Lawlor anyway and this ain't gonna happen. You can even quote this post in your slander campaign.

If you'd read my initial post, I said that I feel sympathy for his wife and kids. That sympathy does not extend to dishonesty though. I'm not sorry the man is dead so I'm not going to disrespect his surviving family by saying that I am. In fact, if as I predicted earlier, it saves the taxpayer's money, I believe it's a bloody good thing that he's dead.

well, hopefully when u die may the same sympathy be extended to you and yours.

the1andonly1

FACT 1: Liam Lawlor didnt die in a red light district
FACT 2: The women he was with was not a prostitute.

Some people refuse to accept this despite barely any evidence to the contary. It is easy to kick a man when he's down, but to put his family through such trauma is reprehensible. And refusing to acknowlegde the facts is equally reprehensible.

Sleepy

daveym wrote:

?? so even when all the scummiest of scum in the press, all the tabloids and the indo admit they were totally wrong and had no facts to back up any
part of the story you can't?

i.e you believed all the crap to begin with based on terrible reporting and now even when these terrible reporters admit they are wrong, NOW you don't believe them? Maybe you should have been a bit more careful about what to believe to begin with..

Rag that it is, there are far scummier press elements in this country than the Sindo (Daily Ireland anyone?).

I find it harder to believe that they just made up the stuff about the Russian police stating that the girl was a prostitute than I do to believe that the press were leaned on by the government and have retracted the story on this basis.

Retr0gamer

The Sindo was just reporting what the russian police said about the women in the car, which just happened to be true. Any way it said it was likely that she could be a prostitute. I'm not totally convinced as to what she is. Seems to me it is a bit of a cover up to preserve whatever dignity he has left.

Sleepy

alleepally wrote:

Seeing as you are on a crusade against corruption can you mount a campaign to ensure that the heads of the various banks that encouraged customers to evade tax in the 80's are brought to justice too...

and while you are at it could we have a reform of the system that allows the super wealthy pay no tax at all.

and while you're doing that can you go in and sort out the HUGE inefficiencies in the public service that drains far more money from the taxpayer than 1,000 Liam Lawlors would ever do.

Thanks a million.

Sure, I'll do it after I broker the middle-east peace deal okay?

I agree with you on all of these points. Maybe I'm just overly cynical but I don't believe that the original story wasn't just quashed as a favour to someone (which isn't me defending the paper, imho, that's a massive condemnation of a news service).

Sleepy

RainyDay wrote:

No-one is suggesting that you say that you're sorry that he is dead. Anyone with a half-decent set of ethical values would expect that you apologise for the factually incorrect statements in your earlier posts. Don't expect anyone to take your 'sympathy for wife & kids' seriously when you won't apologise for or withdraw your incorrect posts.

There is no more evidence that my statements (i.e. the initial reports) were incorrect than there is to suggest that the current story in the media is. Don't confuse journalistic reporting with truth. I just believe the former report to be more likely to be factually correct than the latter. You're free ti differ.

I don't see why anyone is morally bound to express sorrow at the death of someone they believe lived a bad life. That, however, is a debate for the Humanities board and is probably off-topic for this thread. If you'd like to debate it, put a post there and I'll happily opp. the debate.

MrJoeSoap

Sleepy wrote:

There is no more evidence that my statements (i.e. the initial reports) were incorrect than there is to suggest that the current story in the media is. Don't confuse journalistic reporting with truth. I just believe the former report to be more likely to be factually correct than the latter.

Even despite the fact that the paper have completely withdrawn the story and apologised? They accept it as false, why don't you?

kstanl

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Even despite the fact that the paper have completely withdrawn the story and apologised? They accept it as false, why don't you?

I'm afraid I'm not 100% convinced either. At the end of the day, I would certainly give Lawlor the benefit of the doubt unless it was proven beyond doubt that this woman was a prostitute. Anyway, it's beside the point. Regardless of whether Lawlor was on a business trip or a sexcapade, most people on this thread's opinions on the man remain unswayed due to his legacy 'indiscrections' so maybe we should leave it there. Agree to disagree. Some people here thinks it's hypocritical to dumb down their contempt for Lawlor even though he just died on Saturday, others are on their moral high-horse and assert that the rest of us are going to hell for saying anything bad about this guy at this moment in time. C'est la vie.

nlgbbbblth

esel wrote:

Liam is probably having a natter with Reggie Perrin and John Stonehouse at this very moment. Maybe Lord Lucan is there too.

What about Lord Longford?

Sleepy

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Even despite the fact that the paper have completely withdrawn the story and apologised? They accept it as false, why don't you?

Because I live in the real world, where the media can be manipulated by the powerful and Liam Lawlor had a lot of powerful friends who would understandably want to spin this story out of courtesy to his wife and kids.

kstanl

Sleepy wrote:

Because I live in the real world, where the media can be manipulated by the powerful and Liam Lawlor had a lot of powerful friends who would understandably want to spin this story out of courtesy to his wife and kids.

Agreed. I think to just accept it at face value would be very naive. Why on earth would the Russian police say that she was most likely a prostitute in the first place? Surely if she was an interpreter with two wealthy businessmen then she would have been in appropriate attire? Besides, she survived the crash with minor injuries. They would have known there and then what she was doing in the car! Obviously she wasn't talking and the police could only assume she was a sex worker. It was only a day later that they allegedly claim she was an interpreter. And let's face it - it's hardly any surprise that the Russian police would change their story so quickly with the chi-ching of Irish money. It absolutely wreaks of a cover-up. Sorry.

The only other conclusion is that the Russians didn't actually say that and the Indo made it up. In which case they've got a serious lawsuit on their hands.

MrJoeSoap

Note the lack of quotes in Sundays Independent.

RainyDay

kstanl wrote:

The only other conclusion is that the Russians didn't actually say that and the Indo made it up. In which case they've got a serious lawsuit on their hands.

Sleepy wrote:

I find it harder to believe that they just made up the stuff about the Russian police stating that the girl was a prostitute than I do to believe that the press were leaned on by the government and have retracted the story on this basis.

Guys - Hope this doesn't come as a surprise to you, but you're just making fools of yourselves now. You sound like the 5-year-old kid who's been caught with the chocolate smears all over his chin but still denies he's the one who ate the cake. It's just a bit pathetic now.

So you were suckered by a bit of tabloid journalism. It's not that big a deal - we've all fallen for their lines from time to time. Have a listen to the head of the Indo on the RTE News at One today as he explains how they got the story from a Moscow based journalist (not from the police at all). But your conspiracy theories are ludicrous. Do you really, really think that if she was a hooker, the truth would come out very quickly. Do you not think that there would be one journalist in the SIndo who would manage to leak the truth to another paper? Do you think they conjured up the 32-year-old mother-of-2 interpreter out of this air?

So it's time now to have the cojones to admit your mistake, but if you still do believe that he was with a hooker, here's my suggestion - Have the courage of your convictions. Pop along to the funeral on Weds or Thurs, and look Liam's daughter in the eye & explain to her why you think the story was real. You'd have no problem in anyone treating your sister or your daughter in that way if the tables were turned - right?

MrJoeSoap

RainyDay wrote:

Have a listen to the head of the Indo on the RTE News at One today as he explains how they got the story from a Moscow based journalist (not from the police at all).

http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2085159.smil