Category Archives: Defamation law

Lies, whisky and an after-hours visit: Bruce Lehrmann admits he didn’t tell police truth during defamation trial cross examination

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Former Liberal staffer also tells defamation trial that he didn’t tell Brittany Higgins he was leaving office because he ‘wasn’t even sure she was still there’

Bruce Lehrmann said he must have been “mistaken” when he told the Australian Federal Police he did not have any alcohol in his office – and under cross-examination he conceded he had multiple bottles of whisky and gin at the time.

The former Liberal staffer also admitted telling three different stories – including two that were lies – about the reason for his after-hours visit to Parliament House but denied sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins after they entered the ministerial office together.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). The crisis support service Lifeline is at 13 11 14.

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Leading critic of Egyptian state jailed for six months

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Free speech advocate Hisham Kassem sentenced for defaming former minister Kamal Abu Eita

A court in Cairo has sentenced a former newspaper publisher, free speech advocate and rights activist to six months in prison, in a trial observers say constitutes an attack on a leading critic of the Egyptian state.

Hisham Kassem, the former publisher of Al Masry Al Youm newspaper, received six months in detention and a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately £523) for slandering and defaming Kamal Abu Eita. Abu Eita is a former minister and current member of Egypt’s presidential pardon committee, tasked with granting clemency towards some of the tens of thousands of detainees in the Egyptian prison system.

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Heston Russell: former commando tells court he altered invoice he gave to ABC journalist as proof he paid charity

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Admission made in defamation trial against national broadcaster over allegations about the execution of an Afghan prisoner

Heston Russell has admitted to altering an invoice before giving it to an ABC journalist who asked for proof the former commando had paid a veterans’ charity the money he said he had raised for it.

Russell is suing the ABC over two online news articles, a television news item and a radio broadcast that relate to the alleged actions in Afghanistan in 2012 of the November platoon, which Russell commanded.

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Raw footage from Bruce Lehrmann’s Channel Seven interview subpoenaed in defamation case

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Lawyers for Network Ten are examining footage from Spotlight interview as they prepare to defend themselves against Lehrmann’s defamation case

Lawyers for Network Ten are examining raw footage of Channel Seven’s recent interview with Bruce Lehrmann as they prepare to defend themselves against his defamation case.

Lehrmann is currently suing Network Ten, Lisa Wilkinson and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the federal court, alleging they defamed him by wrongly suggesting he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.

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Ben Roberts-Smith to appeal after defamation case was dismissed by federal court

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Ex-soldier lost case against three newspapers in June with trial judge finding they had proven on the balance of probabilities that Roberts-Smith murdered unarmed civilians in Afghanistan

Ben Roberts-Smith has launched an appeal after he lost his war crimes defamation trial in the federal court.

Justice Anthony Besanko found in June that three newspapers had proven Roberts-Smith had, on the balance of probabilities, murdered unarmed civilians while serving in the Australian military in Afghanistan.

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Google ordered to hand over anonymous emailer’s information to former Victorian Labor candidate

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Federal court orders account details be given to Nurul Khan so he can sue the person for defamation

Google has been ordered to hand over the account information and IP address of a person who a Victorian Labor candidate alleges defamed them in an email.

Nurul Khan was endorsed to run for the Labor party in last year’s state election, but an email littered with allegations against him was sent to ministers and news organisations on 9 November.

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Linda Reynolds says she has ‘had enough’ as she threatens Brittany Higgins with defamation case

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Higgins had called on the senator to ‘stop’ after Reynolds confirmed she intended to refer commonwealth’s settlement with Higgins to anti-corruption watchdog

Brittany Higgins has revealed she has received a defamation threat from her former boss Linda Reynolds over an Instagram post that included a list of complaints against the senator.

Reynolds has responded by accusing Higgins of “defamation of my character”.

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Chelmsford defamation case ends in settlement and apology for claims in Scientology book

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HarperCollins ‘sincerely apologises’ to doctor for claims about Sydney hospital in ABC journalist Steve Cannane’s book

A long-running defamation case sparked by the ABC journalist Steve Cannane’s 2016 book on Scientology has ended with a confidential settlement and an apology.

Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia included a range of claims about the use of a controversial psychiatric treatment – deep sleep therapy – at Sydney’s Chelmsford private hospital in the 1960s and 70s.

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Senator removed from party room – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Liberal senator David Van is speaking to Sydney radio 2GB about independent senator Lidia Thorpe’s allegations in the Senate yesterday.

Thorpe withdrew the remarks to comply with the Senate’s standing orders but said she would be making a statement on the issue today.

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Network Ten asks AFP to investigate ‘leaking’ of evidence in Bruce Lehrmann trial

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Lehrmann is suing Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in the federal court over their initial reporting of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, which he denies

Federal police have been asked to investigate the alleged leaking of evidence from the trial of Bruce Lehrmann to the media by a lawyer representing Network Ten.

Marlia Saunders, a partner at Thomson Geer, who is representing Network Ten in a defamation case brought by Lehrmann against them, confirmed she had made a complaint to the AFP on 7 June regarding the leak.

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Bruce Lehrmann says ABC acted maliciously by showing Brittany Higgins speech, court documents show

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Former political staffer suing national broadcaster over a February 2022 joint address by Higgins and Grace Tame at the National Press Club

Bruce Lehrmann has accused the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of acting maliciously by broadcasting Brittany Higgins’ National Press Club address, saying in court documents it was “wilfully blind” to the risk of her defaming him or making prejudicial comments close to his trial.

Lehrmann is suing the ABC over a joint address by Higgins and Grace Tame to the National Press Club in February 2022, which was broadcast live and later uploaded in full to the ABC’s YouTube channel.

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Ben Roberts-Smith: calls for uniform to be removed from Australian War Memorial display

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Greens say removal would be ‘first step in correcting the official record’ after federal court dismisses defamation case

The Australian War Memorial is facing calls to remove Ben Roberts-Smith’s uniform from its display, after the federal court dismissed the defamation case initiated by Australia’s most decorated living soldier.

But the Australian Special Air Service Association has argued it was “a very disappointing day” for veterans who had served in Afghanistan, saying the majority who had done the right thing were being “re-traumatised after having gone through a difficult war”.

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Ben Roberts-Smith defamation loss bad news for Seven boss as Nine marks ‘day of justice’

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Seven chairman Kerry Stokes, who parachuted the former soldier into a network job in 2015, says ‘the judgment does not accord with the man I know’

For Seven’s chairman, Kerry Stokes, the verdict in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial was all bad news.

The cost of the trial is estimated to be between $25m and $35m and, with the billionaire media proprietor bankrolling the former soldier and Seven employee, Stokes’s legal tab will be significant if he does pick up the bill.

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Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr facing heavy legal costs in Arron Banks case

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Criticism over latest development in long-running libel dispute between the leading Brexit backer and the journalist

The award-winning Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr has been ordered to pay significant legal costs to the prominent Brexit backer Arron Banks.

Banks, who donated a record £8m to the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group, originally lost his case against Cadwalladr in his libel action over her remarks in a speech and a tweet.

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Sky News Australia broadcaster Erin Molan and Daily Mail settle defamation case

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Molan and media outlet mutually agree to discontinue legal proceedings at federal court mediation on Thursday

The legal stoush between the Daily Mail and Sky News broadcaster Erin Molan has been settled.

The Daily Mail on Thursday reached a walk-away settlement with the television presenter.

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Bruce Lehrmann told employer ‘false allegations’ had not hurt his ability to lobby effectively, documents show

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List of ‘friendly’ journalists and other media personalities Lehrmann was ‘outraged’ at also among evidence submitted to the court

The former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann told the tobacco giant he lobbied for that the public revelation of rape allegations against him had “not hindered the relations within my political network” and said he was still able to influence federal policy to “further the business financially”, documents show.

New documents filed in Lehrmann’s defamation case against News Corp, Network Ten, Lisa Wilkinson and Samantha Maiden reveal Lehrmann’s correspondence with British American Tobacco Australia, his then employer, in the days and months after Brittany Higgins’ allegations were first made public in February 2021.

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Bruce Lehrmann to argue defamation proceedings delayed by legal advice, mental health and court case

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Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and News Corp, and reporters Lisa Wilkinson and Samantha Maiden, for defamation outside the usual 12-month time limit

Bruce Lehrmann will argue he was delayed in launching defamation proceedings against Network Ten and News Corp because of his mental health, the high-profile criminal case against him and due to prior legal advice, a court has heard.

Lehrmann is suing the two media outlets and reporters Lisa Wilkinson and Samantha Maiden in the federal court, alleging he was defamed in stories reporting Brittany Higgins’ allegations of rape in February 2021.

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Gibraltar’s chief minister threatens top rights lawyers with defamation

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Lawyers call for apology and withdrawal of threats made during inquiry into alleged government corruption

Two leading London-based human rights lawyers have been threatened with defamation proceedings for making submissions on behalf of their client, in a highly unusual development.

The threat was made by lawyers representing the Gibraltar government and senior ministers, including the chief minister, Fabian Picardo, at an inquiry exploring alleged corruption at the top of the British overseas territory’s administration.

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UK government ‘let lawyers bypass sanctions’ to help Putin ally sue journalist

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Documents seen by Open Democracy show UK firm got approval to engage with Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin

British lawyers were given government dispensation to bypass sanctions in order to help Yevgeny Prigozhin, the controversial Russian businessman and Wagner group founder, sue a journalist, according to documents made available to the website Open Democracy.

The documents concern a libel case brought by Prigozhin against Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative group Bellingcat, in 2021. The revelations will raise further questions about the abuse of UK libel law by the super-rich.

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Defamation reforms: Australian media may not be liable for Facebook comments in future

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Attorneys general give in-principle support to changes including new innocent dissemination defence for intermediaries

Australian media companies may avoid liability for defamatory third-party comments on their social media posts if reforms supported by the nation’s attorneys general become law.

The Standing Council of Attorneys General has given in-principle support to reforms to modernise the nation’s defamation laws relating to search engines and social media platforms.

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