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An Irish journalist who has made controversial allegations about a Government minister and an airline pilot regularly using cocaine has fled to New Zealand amid calls for her to name the minister.
Dublin journalist Justine Delaney Wilson who has flown to New Zealand - the home of her husband - has so far declined to reveal the names, the Irish Independent newspaper reported.
Delaney Wilson issued a statement from New Zealand this week stating she had destroyed a digital recording of a Irish Government minister admitting taking cocaine.
The recording was made while researching an RTE television programme, on which she has since based a book.
One of the country's leading experts in defamation law claimed that both Delaney Wilson and her publishers, Gill and Macmillan, may face legal action over her book, The High Society.
They run the risk of a class action by the group of 32 government ministers over whom a cloud of suspicion now hangs, said Neville Cox, an expert on defamation law.
A barrister and senior lecturer in defamation law at Trinity College, Dublin, he believes they could also face a libel action in regard to the cocaine-sniffing pilot who the book says "flies out of Dublin to various airports in the US, at least a couple of times a week" and whose age is mentioned.
"Undoubtedly, by virtue of the fact that an age is given and a very specific flight pattern, any pilot who fits this description could take a case against the author and the publisher," said Cox.
In another development, it was claimed yesterday that Delaney Wilson destroyed the recording of the minister's conversation because she was terrified of a British newspaper which was hounding her for details.
Fergal Tobin, publishing director of Gill and Macmillan, said: "Justine was being hounded by a British newspaper and was distraught that her source would be revealed.
"I know who the minister is and I have the name of the pilot in a drawer in my office.
"Though we are very angry about the recording being destroyed, I believe her transcripts to be accurate and authentic."
The publishing company said that the author, on her solicitor's advice, had destroyed the recordings and transcripts.
- NZPA
