No jail over false sex claims

A man has been given a suspended jail sentence for defaming a politician in a television interview, four years ago.

Craig Ratcliff, 48, claimed to have evidence the politician had committed sex acts with young boys.

South Australian Supreme Court Justice Anne Vanstone said Ratcliff had been convinced to do the interview by anti-child abuse campaigners Wendy Utting and Barry Standfield.

Justice Vanstone said she had considered in sentencing that Ms Utting and Mr Standfield were acquitted of similar offences last week.

Ratcliff's six-month prison term was suspended in favour of a three-year good behaviour bond.

Lawyers win $300k payout from Seven

Two lawyers have been awarded more than $300,000 plus costs, ending a six-year defamation fight with Channel Seven.

Simon Lane and Noelle Hurley represented paedophile Peter Liddy in a civil case brought by some of his victims in South Australia.

The two barristers represented the former Adelaide magistrate in the case.

A broadcast in 2002 by Channel Seven's Today Tonight program alleged the pair deliberately misled the court about the true value of Liddy's estate, in particular a cache of antique guns allegedly worth between $10 million and $20 million.

In a statement after the Supreme Court found in their favour, the lawyers said they found it extraordinary that Channel Seven had re-broadcast the baseless allegations in 2005.

They said they should not have had to wait six years and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear their names.

The civil case over Liddy's estate continues in the District Court.

Corbys' mother gets defamation payout

The mother of Schapelle and Mercedes Corby, Roseleigh Rose, has received a confidential payout from Channel Seven in settlement of her complaint she was defamed by its Today Tonight program.

The program, which settled a similar complaint by Mercedes Corby for an undisclosed sum three weeks ago, was based on an interview with her former best friend Jodie Power.

Ms Rose had alleged she was defamed by allegations in the program that she was guilty of the crimes of selling, possessing and trafficking marijuana, that she caused Schapelle Corby to commit the crime of importing the drug into Bali and that she posed a threat to the life of Ms Power.

The parties reached agreement on the case last week, Ms Rose's lawyer said outside the Supreme Court today.

The terms of the settlement were placed in a sealed envelope after the judge, Justice Lucy McCallum, approved them.

Mercedes Corby's recent payout from the program was rumoured to have been as high as $1 million.

A jury ruled Mercedes Corby had been defamed by three separate reports in the program.

Ms Rose had complained of defamation in only one report.

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Glorifying gangsters a crime, say critics

Infamous ... Carl Williams.

THE hit television show Underbelly has turned the gangsters it is based on into cult stars - but community leaders say the glorification of crime has gone too far.

"Gangster chic" means killer Carl Williams is overwhelmed with mail in his cell at Barwon Prison in Victoria and has the maximum 5000 friends signed to his Facebook page.

NSW shadow police minister Mike Gallacher said: "Carl Williams has been portrayed as a likeable dope, when the reality is this guy is a dangerous, ruthless killer. These people were involved in a drug trade that has ruined countless lives.

"I just cannot believe that the producers of programs would now reward these sort of people with glorification and guest appearances on TV."

Williams's wife, Roberta, last week was signed up by Sydney shock jock Kyle Sandilands's talent agency with the promise of a reality TV show contract.

Until her husband's exploits in the Melbourne underworld were celebrated on Channel Nine's Underbelly she was the wife of a convicted killer. Now she is a star.

NSW Police Minister David Campbell said yesterday: "I am certain in my belief that no one should profit from their crimes."

Williams may not be profiting from the four murders for which he was jailed, but plenty of people are - including his wife, who now takes people on guided tours of Melbourne's gangland - and the people selling "I roll with Carl" T-shirts on eBay.

While they take the profits, many are warning that it is Australian society and its children who are paying the price.

NSW Teachers Federation president Maree O'Halloran, said: "Before we had heroes like John Wayne and Star Wars who did good things, but now we seem to celebrate the wrong-doers."

Criminals glorified in the Underbelly series, such as Mick Gatto and Tony Mokbel, have earnt the kind of notoriety normally accorded minor celebrities.

"If the source of someone's celebrity comes from criminal activity then to reward them for that does fly in the face of what we should do as a society," said Dr Simon Longstaff, executive director of St James Ethics Centre.

"A society that values the baubles of celebrity more than the substance of character is hardly one that is worthy of admiration.

"When drama is based on reality and is giving the impression that a life of crime is something to be admired, then I think there are problems. It is glorifying something that is wrong."

The feelings of victims and their families are in danger of being ignored as scriptwriters rush to cash in on television's true-crime wave. Similar dramatisations are planned.

Peter Rolfe, president of the Homicide Survivors After Murder Group, said: "Our problem with a series like Underbelly is that there is no thought for the victims or their families.

"Shows like this add to the distress of the victims by glorifying the actions of the criminals.

"This encourages copycat situations and it simply should not be done.

"It is a sad state of affairs when the glorification of criminals and their activities has become a business."

Quote: NSW Police Minister David Campbell said, quote: "he was certain in his belief that no one should profit from their crimes." Unquote: Yet why is it is okay for corporations to profit from others crimes? Seems media fabrication, sensationalism and down right lies don't speak the real truth anyway. So what's the point? M.O.N.E.Y. $$$$$$$$. Maree O'Halloran forgot to mention that John Wayne shot people, a lethal meme. Hardly a hero. Dr Simon Longstaff managed to duck and weave Ned Kelly and the gang? Australian folk heroes. Glorifying something that is wrong? What about war criminals and the illegal and degrading wars on Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan? Fact is people who make a mistake ought to be able to tell their stories so that others learn about those mistakes and can then avoid making the same mistakes, that's common sense. Less of those stories will be made available to the general public if no one will pay for them. No doubt! Why should prisoners work for free? Considering most of them have lost everything too accept some of the high flyers and corporate criminals like Alan Bond. Rich surprise: Alan Bond bounces back.

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Channel Seven guilty in Corby defamation

A Supreme Court jury has found Channel Seven guilty of defamation against Mercedes Corby.

Ms Corby is the sister of convicted drug smuggler Schappelle Corby.

She sued Channel Seven after the broadcaster's current affairs show Today Tonight falsely implied she was a drug dealer.

Jury's verdict is a win at last for Team Corby


Vindicated … Mercedes Corby with her lawyer Stuart Littlemore after she won a defamation case against Today Tonight.

MERCEDES CORBY won her defamation case against Channel Seven last night, a jury finding that a total of 28 defamatory meanings had been conveyed in three Today Tonight programs and a television news story in February last year.

Of the seven defamatory meanings that Channel Seven and its co-defendants sought to defend on the grounds they were true, the jury found that only one - that Ms Corby was guilty of the crime of possessing marijuana - had been established.

As she walked out of the Supreme Court with her lawyers, Ms Corby said: "I am really happy, but I have still got more to do. I am really happy with the outcome thanks to my legal team."

Jodie Power, the former best friend of Ms Corby, went out the opposite entrance with Bryan Seymour, the Today Tonight reporter who interviewed her. Clearly distressed, she said: "At least I can walk out of here with my head held high. I did not have to lie about myself. I did not have to invent anything. There were no voodoos for this story." Seymour put his arm round her and said: "It's OK, dear."

Ms Corby, after a brief consultation in chambers with her barrister, Stuart Littlemore, QC, and solicitor, Bill Kalantzis, walked down Martin Place and, seeing Anna Coren, presenter of Today Tonight, give a live studio telecast of the program that had defamed her, paused to look in.

The defamatory statements by Ms Power followed a falling-out between her and Ms Corby in 2005 after the arrest of Ms Corby's sister Schapelle in Bali in October 2004. Schapelle Corby was charged with trying to smuggle 4.1 kilograms of marijuana into Indonesia, an offence that earned her 20 years' imprisonment.

The trial heard evidence that Ms Power, although claiming to want to help in Schapelle Corby's defence, became domineering and gave interviews to magazines such as Woman's Day for money. When Ms Power returned to Bali with presents from Woman's Day readers to give Schapelle Corby, the jailed woman would not see her and Ms Power blamed Mercedes for intervening. The two never spoke again.

The defamation case, before Justice Carolyn Simpson and a jury of four, lasted just over four weeks and was the first held under amended defamation laws. Instead of restricting a jury to deciding whether or not the alleged meanings are conveyed, the jury must now decide whether they are defamatory and whether or not the defence, in this case of truth, is established.

Justice Simpson, who appeared irked at times because of the antics of a somewhat truculent bar table, thanked the jury of three men and a woman for their attention and said they were "trailblazers" for the new legislation.

Ms Power said or implied on the Today Tonight programs that Mercedes Corby had: asked her to smuggle drugs into Bali; confessed to her that she had smuggled marijuana herself; had cultivated, sold, supplied and possessed marijuana; and had lied to the public about her family's involvement in drugs.

She also said or implied that Mercedes had been knowingly involved in her sister Schapelle's importation of marijuana into Bali.

Ms Power further said or implied that Ms Corby was a threat to her safety, and that she had denied her sister's Indonesian lawyers a chance to prove her innocence.

She said Ms Corby was guilty of the crimes of taking the illicit drugs cocaine, shabu, ecstasy and speed in the five-year period before February 2007, and that she was guilty of the crime of possessing those drugs.

Ms Corby launched defamation proceedings against Seven, the Seven Network, the producers of Sky News, Coren, a Today Tonight reporter, Bryan Seymour, and Ms Power.

Ms Corby, 33, admitted she had smoked marijuana but that was years ago when she was young and silly and that her marijuana smoking consisted of "a few puffs" - perhaps seven times - and three portions of an ecstasy tablet which added up to just one tablet.

During legal argument, Mr Littlemore conceded that merely to hold marijuana in one's hand amounted, technically, to possession, but did not necessarily amount to possession in any substantial sense. But all other allegations were denied. The proceedings, in which both sides called witnesses, were marked by rigorous cross-examinations by Mr Littlemore and Seven's legal team, which included Tom Hughes, QC, his son Tom Hughes and Kieran Smark, SC.

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Corby informant paid $120,000 cash, court told
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Convicted Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has lost a final appeal to have her jail sentence reduced.

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Convicted cannabis smuggler Corby has served less than four years of a 20-year sentence.

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