Journalist Brenda Power has told a jury in a High Court defamation action that ‘midwives work too hard to be tiptoeing around fathers with lawyers on speed dial’.

The Sunday Times columnist is being sued, along with the newspaper, by Donegal-born but Dubai-based property broker John McCauley, over an article she wrote in March 2009 about him filming the birth of his baby daughter.

She has told the court she believes John McCauley behaved appallingly by suing a midwife for €38,000 because she interrupted the filming.

She has said that she relied on facts she read from court copy of the circuit court case in 2009; that the birth was by emergency caesarean section, and that subsequently there was an emergency procedure to evacuate the baby’s lungs.

After Mr McCawley lost the action, Brenda Power wrote "I've always suspected that there is a type of man who just can't get his head around the fact that he is not, actually the most important person in the room when his wife or girlfriend is having a baby. He can't face being an extra, there on sufferance. He has to be the director, the producer, the star".

Mr McCauley claims the article is defamatory and makes him look like ‘some kind of headcase running around with a camera'.

Defending her article in court, Brenda Power has said 'the person who damaged John McCawley’s reputation is Mr McCawley'.

She has told the jury the thought of a midwife being hauled before the courts for doing her job made her ‘very cross’ and that she is still of the view his actions were ‘bizarre’ and ‘irresponsible’.

Under cross-examination, she has said ‘suing the midwife who saved the life of his baby girl was unacceptable’. She added that it was her belief John McCawley would have set a dangerous precedent had he won the case.

She was told by Colm Smyth, SC, to ‘get a grip’ when she compared the case to Praveen Halappanavar who she said did not sue the midwife having left hospital without his wife and baby.

Brenda Power also said to the court that Mr McCawley has sued 5 women, 3 female journalists, the midwife and 'an air hostess who wouldn’t serve him a drink'.

The journalist and the Sunday Times deny defamation and say the article was true, fair comment and enjoyed qualified privilege.

The case continues.