Category Archives: Defamation law

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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ABC article defamed commando by naming him and running ‘huge colour photo’, court told

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Heston Russell’s lawyer tells federal court readers were given ‘impression’ he was responsible for shooting an unarmed prisoner in Afghanistan

Lawyers for a former special forces officer have argued an ABC article portrayed him as a war criminal, despite not directly alleging he had committed crimes.

Heston Russell is suing the ABC and two of its investigative journalists over stories published in 2020 and 2021 which he argues gave readers the “impression” he was responsible for shooting an unarmed prisoner and was being investigated.

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Peter Dutton’s defamation case against refugee activist Shane Bazzi ends with resolution

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Bazzi will not face prospect of high court overturning earlier win and Dutton will not pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs

Peter Dutton’s defamation case against Shane Bazzi has come to an end, with the Liberal leader dropping his attempted high court appeal and the refugee activist ceasing a bid for costs.

Bazzi’s lawyers, O’Brien Criminal & Civil Solicitors, revealed the pair had reached a resolution with final orders made by the full federal court on Monday.

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