A judge overseeing Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case against Fairfax has refused a bid by the publisher to bolster its defence with further allegations of criminal conduct by the soldier, who told the court Friday former Governor-General Quentin Bryce will give evidence for him at the upcoming trial.
Ben Roberts-Smith has raised “serious concerns” in his defamation case against Fairfax that the media company may have unlawfully published classified material he allegedly buried in his backyard, with the war veteran asking for an explanation of where it came from.
News Corp and journalist Annette Sharp will have to pay the legal costs of Sydney lawyer Christopher Murphy who won a $110,000 judgment in his defamation case against the publisher, despite the lawyer rejecting an $120,000 offer to settle the case.
High profile criminal lawyer Christopher Murphy has been awarded a $110,000 judgment in his defamation case over a “gossipy and intrusive” Daily Telegraph article which a judge found had damaged the lawyer’s professional reputation.
News publishers facing a defamation suit by Ben Roberts-Smith have called on the war veteran to explain alleged “deliberate concealment” of documents relevant to the case, as the Australian Federal Police reveals they are investigating claims he buried evidence.
Nine has agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit by former Liberal leader John Hewson alleging a report by A Current Affair about his insurance firm was gratuitous and “seriously dishonest”.
The judge overseeing sports presenter Erin Molan’s defamation case against the Daily Mail won’t force Molan to be questioned ahead of trail about a segment on Nine’s The Footy Show in which she laughed at an off-colour joke, saying the publisher was “fishing”.
Fairfax has settled long-running defamation proceedings brought by former Leighton Holdings CFO Peter Gregg over 11 articles that accused him of corruption, after he won an appeal last year overturning his conviction on related criminal charges.
A judge has allowed four Afghan witnesses who allegedly saw Ben Roberts-Smith kick a handcuffed Afghan citizen off a cliff to give evidence remotely when the Australian war veteran’s defamation case against three newspapers heads to trial in June.
The Daily Mail wants to question sports presenter Erin Molan over a segment on Nine’s The Footy Show four years ago in which she laughed at an off-colour joke, as part of the publisher’s truth defence to Molan’s claims that she has been falsely labelled a racist.