And you have a point in return, and a dilemma with which to grapple.  But to my mind, it still doesn't justify the excess length, especially given the level of detail present in one section as opposed to the others.  

I might also suggest that one newspaper article is proof of nothing, despite some rather emphatic insistence it is.  Newspapers have editorial standards and biases of their own.  Consequently, we're left to determine the veracity of individual quotes, and have no way of knowing evidence was omitted from the article in order to paint a specific picture.  The implication I draw from earlier comments is that what Irvine says is not true (unless he's admitting he lied) and everyone else is truthful. Yet even a cursory glance through the comments accompanying the article and associated material in the same publication indicates one of the other major parties involved has a pretty dicey history herself.  I'd say hanging the word proof on any of what you have is pretty questionable absent a second reliable source of evidence (i.e.: not another entity that has picked up and recycled the original source article.)