The father of Paddy Jackson has been left "crushed" by an Irish reality TV personality falsely claiming he tried to pay off the complainant at the rugby star's rape trial, the High Court heard today.
Peter Jackson became so obsessed and paranoid about the lies spread on social media by Danielle Meagher that he suffered a stroke while trawling the internet to check on her latest postings, a judge was told.
"This was an absolute statement that I had been criminally dishonest," Mr Jackson said.
"If the intent of the tweets was to get into my brain and into my heart that was achieved by the individual who put them out there."
Mr Jackson sued Ms Meagher, also known as Danielle Collins, for libel over the unfounded allegations published on Twitter, now rebranded as X, back in April 2018.
Weeks earlier his former Ireland and Ulster rugby players Paddy Jackson, 33, and Stuart Olding, 32, had been unanimously acquitted of raping the same woman.
Both sportsmen denied any criminal wrongdoing throughout their high-profile trial in Belfast.
With judgment already obtained against Ms Meagher in the defamation action, she did not attend today's hearing on the level of damages to be awarded.
Court told lives 'decimated'
Accompanied by his wife Gay, Mr Jackson described how their lives have been "decimated" since the untrue claims were published about him bribing a witness and attempting to bribe the complainant at his son’s trial.
He told the court his shock and anger led to him losing...
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