Critical Trashing Thrashes Goodfellas Suit

THE INFAMOUS Irish restaurant Goodfellas, that successfully sued newspaper the Irish News after a bad review, only to have the judgement overturned, has lost its appeal to have the case reheard in front of the House of Lords.

In the first case of its kind in Northern Ireland, Ciaran Convery, owner of Goodfellas Restaurant & Pizzeria in Belfast, was awarded a shock £25,000 libel award last year, sending restaurant critics around the country into a flutter, successfully claiming the review of his restaurant was a ‘hatchet’ job.

The Irish News had the ruling overturned last month though in the Northern Ireland court of appeal, and Convery has failed to take the case to the next level after three high court judges turned him down.

The first jury found Caroline Workman’s review was ‘defamatory, damaging and hurtful’, only to have the court of appeal overrule them deciding the opinions expressed contained ‘justification and fair comment’.

Now, after attracting global attention to the review, Convery will have to live with the world reading that his restaurant serves “translucent grey rings [that] cannot have been real squid and hard batter coating and bottled Thousand Island dressing [which] did little to make them more appetising”.