They were like Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez on the tiles. Or at least, that's how she saw it. They moved gracefully, two musicians lost in the sounds that drifted across the dancefloor. Rogers and Astaire, get ye behind us.

So went the tone of a photo and text spread in the society bible, Social & Personal magazine in July 2005. The couple in question were David Agnew, former husband of entertainer Twink, and his new partner, Ruth Hickey. The pair met in the RTE Concert Orchestra. He played the oboe, she the clarinet. Whatever wind they generated between them was as nothing compared to the love that began to speak its name between the covers of Social & Personal.

The headline on the piece was "Falling for a dancer". It was billed a "romantic spread". Hickey told the magazine that the couple were like "Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere in the movie Shall We Dance". David was 48, Ruth 29.

The above piece featured briefly in the High Court last week. So did another piece that was published the following month in The Irish?Examiner. The paper's entertainment correspondent, PJ Gibbons, had another scoop. Ruth was expecting. She spoke exclusively to Gibbons about the news. "'I just found out yesterday that it's going to be a boy and we're both so excited and happy,' she said on Thursday evening after performing at a gig in the National Concert Hall," Gibbons reported.

None of it could have been easy on poor Twink, but such are the cruel arrows of fate when Cupid gets all worked up, and there's really nothing anyone can do.

At issue in the High Court case are two other media pieces, which appeared the following year, 2006. Hickey claims these articles and photos in the Sunday World breached her privacy and defamed her.

The photograph showed her leaving the registry of births office with her son. The accompanying text had references and quotes from an infamous phone message Twink left on David Agnew's phone.

The articles were published in May and August that year. The language in the phone message was highly emotional, and didn't reflect well on Twink's composure at the time. Somebody got their hands on the message and it became an internet sensation. The Sunday World published some extracts.

Hickey says her privacy and that of her son was breached by the newspaper. She wants to be compensated. The legal team she hired includes two senior counsel, a luxury that tends to be reserved for highly complex cases in this day and age.

Hickey was the only witness in the three-day action. She gave her evidence on Tuesday. She was asked about the phone message. "Adele (King aka Twink) was absolutely right to express her hurt but the level of that expression did not need to be repeated in the paper," Hickey told Judge Nicholas Kearns.

"People who know nothing about me or any of us do not need to read about this over coffee on Sunday morning."

She was asked about the contents of the two-minute phone message, which was described as a rant and a "tirade of abuse". The message had made reference in disparaging terms to Hickey and the son she parented with Agnew.

"I had a three-month-old son and found it cheap, nasty and highly offensive. I'm his mum. He was planned and wanted, and no sordid or disgusting act brought about his being. And I am blatantly not a whore."

She said that her son's delivery was forever marred by the use of the term "whore-dropped", and a reference to her son as a "bastard". This language was quoted from Twink's phone message.

On Friday, both sides made submissions to the judge. At issue is whether the right to privacy or the right to free speech gets the bigger nod in this case. The defamation part centres around the use of the word "whore".

Hickey's side claim that the word means that she, the plaintiff, "engaged in sexual acts other than in a loving relationship". The news­paper disputes that this is the meaning of the word in the context used.

Ruth finds herself in grand company in terms of the case law referenced. Naomi Campbell's privacy case over being snapped leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting was mentioned, as was a case taken by Princess Caroline of Monaco. On the downside, somebody had to go and drag in a case involving the goddamn Mahon tribunal. Is there to be no freedom from the beast?

Eoin McCullough for the Sunday World said that "one can open any newspaper any day and see material that would fail to meet the test of privacy" set by Hickey's people. He also rejected the contention that she had been libelled.

Hickey wasn't in court on Friday to hear the case being summed up and wound down. These days, she has hung up her clarinet and earns a crust in PR, working for Terry Prone's Communications Clinic.

Her profile on the company website contains a light touch. Referring to PR work she did for the Road Safety Authority, it says that it was there "that she earned the nickname that we think sums her up nicely. At one event, the RSA chairman Gay Byrne thanked her for her work, and christened her Ruthless. He meant it in a positive way. So do we," the profile concludes.

Friday was the last day of the law term and all the boys and girls in the Four Courts downed tools and left for a two-month break before hostilities resume. Kearns said he would deliver his ruling in October.