BACKGROUND: TO THE more than 500,000 people who watched the Prime Time Investigates “A Mission to Prey” programme in May, the reaction of Fr Kevin Reynolds was flippant to the point of being utterly irresponsible.
“I hope I look good on the picture ha, ha, ha,” he said to RTÉ reporter Aoife Kavanagh as he walked towards his front door.
Kavanagh and a cameraman had arrived at Fr Reynolds’s church in Ahascragh, Co Galway, on Sunday, May 7th, this year just as First Communion was going on.
Having filmed the Mass from the back of the church, they doorstepped Fr Reynolds afterwards with the allegations that he had raped a minor called Veneranda and had a daughter Sheila with her.
His reaction was one of incredulity.
He had never heard of either woman.
“You don’t know anything about what we’re talking about?” asked Kavanagh. “Absolutely nothing, that’s the Gospel truth,” Fr Reynolds responded. Had he been the father of a child in Kenya he would have lived up to his responsibilities, he said.
His jocular parting words suggested he was not taking the allegation seriously, but, when he realised RTÉ was serious about broadcasting it, his attempts to have it stopped grew increasingly frantic.
His original solicitors wrote a letter four days later to the unspecified “head of broadcasting” at RTÉ repeating the denials and also denying a claim put to the priest that his bishop in Kenya, Bishop Philip Sulemati, had been told that Fr Reynolds had fathered a child.
That letter was never acknowledged. Instead, Kavanagh herself wrote back a week later – against the practice that solicitors usually respond to solicitors.
Kavanagh said she had a “credible third-party source” to suggest that Fr Reynolds was the father of Sheila and that he had contributed to her education.
Kavanagh never produced the “credible third-party source” despite repeated requests.
Fr Reynolds went further than revealed in legal correspondence.
Through his order he offered to take a paternity test, a fact acknowledged in the correction order which appears in The Irish Times today and in other national newspapers.
The most salient question in this episode is why RTÉ persisted in broadcasting the item when Fr Reynolds had offered to take a paternity test.
RTÉ is asking itself the same question in a review into how the programme was made. “We will not be commenting on individual elements of the programme and its production, or on the possible outturns of the review activity, pending its completion,” said RTÉ’s head of corporate communication Kevin Dawson.
The station did eventually fund a paternity test, but by that stage the programme was broadcast and the damage done.
Fr Reynolds, through the Association of Catholic Priests, engaged the services of Robert Dore and Company solicitors on a pro-bono basis because they could not afford a High Court action.
Mr Dore wrote to RTÉ on June 23rd, a month after the broadcast, stressing that his client was anxious to take a paternity test as soon as possible as he was being stood down from his ministry.
In correspondence seen by The Irish Times, RTÉ responded six days later saying it was “agreeable in principle to the paternity test”.
When details were not forthcoming, Mr Dore wrote back warning that the paternity test “cannot be left in limbo”.
Further correspondence by Mr Dore repeatedly criticised RTÉ’s delay in filing a defence.
On July 7th, RTÉ finally confirmed that it had retained the services of “Ormond Quay Paternity Services” in Dublin and would be carrying out a paternity test within three weeks.
RTÉ protested that there were “obvious logistical difficulties” in obtaining DNA samples from Kenya.
Mr Dore pointed out that there were no “obvious logistical difficulties” in interviewing both women for the programme.
As July turned into August, a breakthrough came by way of a handwritten letter from Sheila which apologised to Fr Reynolds and said he was not her father.
RTÉ responded by saying it had “no comment” to make about any potential witnesses to the defamation action.
Mr Dore again wrote to RTÉ on August 25th inquiring as to what was happening in relation to the paternity test. His exasperation turned to rage on September 6th.
He found out that the negative test results had been with RTÉ for four days and were leaked to a journalist, who then approached Fr Reynolds before the priest or his legal team were informed.
RTÉ eventually caved in on September 28th and wrote a letter offering an apology.
Ormond Quay Paternity Services charge €700 for a paternity test for a court case.
The cost to RTÉ of this case in damages, possibly in the order of €1 million, and the reputation of those involved in the programme and its own reputation is incalculable.