THE RTÉ current affairs programme Prime Time last Thursday night issued a lengthy apology to a priest who it wrongfully accused of fathering a child through rape while a missionary in Kenya.
In an apology broadcast before the Prime Time programme, the broadcaster said RTÉ now fully and unreservedly accepts that the allegations made by Prime Time against Fr Kevin Reynolds are baseless, without any foundation whatever and untrue”.
RTÉ acknowledged that the material concerning Fr Reynolds in the programme, entitled A Mission to Prey , which was broadcast on May 23rd, 2011, “ought never to have been broadcast”.
The apology came after Fr Reynolds instituted High Court defamation proceedings against the broadcaster.