- Moira Deeming wins defamation case
- He was awarded $300,000 in damages.
Expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming was applauded from the court gallery after winning a defamation case and $300,000 in damages against Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto.
Federal Court Judge David O’Callaghan found Pesutto defamed Deeming by suggesting or implying she was a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer last year when he expelled her from the Liberal Party.
Deeming alleged that Pesutto defamed her after a Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March 2023, which was broken up by a group of neo-Nazi protesters on the steps of Victorian Parliament, a claim he denied.
However, Judge O’Callaghan found that Pesutto defamed Ms Deeming in a press release, two radio interviews, a press conference and in a motion for expulsion from the party.
The judge ruled that Pesutto was implying that Deeming was unfit to serve in the parliamentary Liberal Party because of her associations with the Nazis.
Pesutto was not present in court to hear the decision, while Deeming had the support of her husband and a group of women.
The group applauded after the judge left the bench, while Mrs. Deeming’s husband hugged her.
Earlier in the day, Ms Deeming was seen with a broad smile walking confidently into court flanked by her legal team.
The expelled Liberal MP won her defamation case against Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto.
He refused to answer questions from the waiting press group.
During the three-and-a-half-week trial in September, Ms. Deeming, who is now an independent MP, told the court that the men dressed in black who were escorted by police to the women’s demonstration area had nothing to do with her demonstration.
Mr. Pesutto was also sued for British women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen and fellow Let Women Speaking protest organizer Angie Jones, but they settled those cases out of court in May.
As part of that agreement, he was forced to issue a humiliating apology.
“I have never believed nor intended to claim that Kellie-Jay Keen and Angela Jones are neo-Nazis,” he wrote.
‘I agree with them that the community’s genuine concerns regarding women’s safety and access to single-sex spaces, services and sports deserve meaningful public debate.
“My comments may have been misinterpreted as expressing that I believed that to be the case. I apologize for any pain, distress or harm that has occurred.”
The Liberal leader had previously said he would vigorously contest all three defamation proceedings.