O'Donoghue Not Guilty of Murder

http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=Tribune/News/Home%20News&id=82385&SUBCAT=Tribune/News&SUBCATNAME=News

Wayne O'Donoghue is released, and the media is put in the dock


HIS sentence was served, the prison gates were flung open, and then the trial got under way.

But who exactly was in the dock?

Last week's release of Wayne O'Donoghue was expected to herald a media frenzy. For three years, the tabloid press waited to get him out in the open, where they could see the whites of his eyes, and pummel the living daylights out of him.

He was to go on trial for something, anything, that might sell a few papers. It was to be the case of the red-tops versus O'Donoghue, with the prosecution counsel pointing a long lens and declaring with venom: "It woz him wot done it".

In the end, the media went on trial. The tone was set on RTE television's Questions and Answers on Monday evening.

Evening Herald editor Stephen Rae came under attack from all quarters, as if he had invented gutter sniping and the demonisation of choice targets.

Columnist John Waters laid into Rae, declaring that the Evening Herald was not the Supreme Court. The bearded Waters cut a biblical figure, his hair cut to an apostolic length, as he smote Rae with righteous indignation, driving him from the temple of decency. At the end of it all, the poor editor had the cut of a man who would gladly do a stint in the Midlands Prison to escape this barrage.

Forensic evidence On Tuesday, Prime Time got down to serious business, treading forensic ground previously visited by the Sunday Tribune.

The programme examined the unreliability of Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA profiling, the scientific process that was at the heart of the controversy around O'Donoghue's conviction for the manslaughter of 11-year-old Robert Holohan.

LCN DNA profiling was used to identify semen found on Robert's body. The initial result suggested there was a one in 70 million chance that the material was not O'Donoghue's. The result could have been the basis for a murder rather than manslaughter prosecution. Robert's family were informed of the results.

However, further tests dismissed the initial finding. No such evidence was introduced because it was deemed to be too weak and capable of prejudicing the trial. However, questions remained for Majella Holohan and, after her victim impact statement, for the press.

Prime Time showed how the process has been discredited, most recently in the collapsed trial of Sean Hoey for the Omagh bombing. The programme demonstrated that O'Donoghue was given a raw deal in the perception that there was any sexual element to Robert's death. On the eve of his release, the tide was turning in favour of O'Donoghue, away from those who would want to vilify him in the future.

On Wednesday, the Sun jumped the gun. The paper, on the streets sometime before 6am, declared that Wayne had been "spirited out of prison in the back of a van". At 7am, Wayne came through the gates in a car with his father and solicitor, Frank Buttimer. He stepped out and read a prepared statement, including an apology, to the assembled hacks. It was a master stroke by the canny Buttimer, designed to set the headline agenda. The broadcasters had their audio, the papers their pics and quotes and life had been drained from the expected chase. That evening, the Herald front page was dominated by the words: "I'm Sorry".

Thursday's headlines carried the baton. 'Act of Contrition' blazed The Irish Independent, summing up the thrust of the coverage.

O'Donoghue's statement also led The Star, where coverage was refreshingly neutral. The Sun, chastened from the previous day's booboo, held fire on its target with the headlines:

'Forgive Me' and 'He's Gone'.

British imports Only The Daily Mail and The Mirror stuck the boot in. Both fed off an attempt to set the Holohans' pain against the ending of O'Donoghue's incarceration.

'Sorry Won't Bring Robert Back' shouted The Mirror, while The Mail declared 'No End To Majella's Anguish'. Further up the market, The Irish Examiner held the middle ground, while the Irish Times held its nose with an editorial in which there was the only reference of the day to the new press council.

One media barometer was having none of this story. All through the week, RTE's Liveline stuck with the cystic fibrosis scandal, indicating perhaps that the tide had firmly turned on any residual animosity towards O'Donoghue.

By Friday, the story was given life by an interview Robert's father Mark gave to theEvening Echo the previous day. In it, he called O'Donoghue's apology "a stunt" and fed the British imports with the line they wanted. The Herald got wind of the story and ran with the relatively straight: 'Holohans Reject Wayne Apology'. The Brits weren't so forgiving.

'Stuff Your Apology' roared theCurrant Bun, back in fighting form just 48 hours after being caught with its trousers down. The Mail and Mirror hopped on board as well, but by that evening the Herald had relegated the story to its inside pages.

On the whole, the media bandwagon acquitted itself fairly well in relation to the story. The only real venom came from the Irish editions of British tabloids, which may say something about the cultural nuances between the two islands and something else about the lack of understanding in some quarters thereof.

The native press sniffed the air and concluded that it wouldn't take much for a rogue wind to blow up a storm of public outrage . . . directed not at O'Donoghue, but at the media itself.

lizann wrote: »

Why do people feel sorry for Wayne O Donoghue?

I don't feel sorry for him. His actions afterwards were dispictable and he should have been charged also for this.

I feel sorry for the Holohan family and WOD's family.