This morning, just after 9am, more than 17 hours after the story that appeared on this page on Gript.ie was published the Garda Press Office contacted Gript to say that the unnamed person referred to in the story that appeared at this link yesterday, is not, in fact, a person of interest in the events of last Thursday.
Gript Media’s original reporting was sourced from a member of an Garda Siochána. It was further cross-checked against publicly available records, and while the name of the suspect was not reported, that name was put to a senior Justice official on the basis of an informal “cross-check” before publication.
Gript Media, like other media outlets, has a firm policy of never naming any individual suspected in relation to a criminal act until such time as that person has been charged with a crime, and confirming that there are no reporting restrictions in place. In this case, we kept to that policy, while cross-checking our details with our sources in the usual way.
We are investigating the circumstances of this error, including giving due consideration to the question of whether this media outlet was deliberately deceived by a senior justice official. If we determine that to have been the case, then our obligation to protect the anonymity of those sources will be considered forfeit.