Harry Potter author and outspoken gender critic JK Rowling has thrown her support behind ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming following her massive libel victory.
Ms Deeming won her high-profile defamation case against Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto and was awarded $300,000 in damages by the Federal Court on Thursday.
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 after she attended a gender-critical rally.
‘The judge found that I was defamed in five separate publications and that each of them also caused serious damage to my reputation. Each and every one of Mr. Pesutto’s defenses failed,” Ms. Deeming wrote in X.
“This sentence is a public recognition that there was never any justification – legal, moral or political – for what the opposition leader did to me and my family.”
Rowling shared Deeming’s post with her 14.2 million followers and wrote: “The “right side of history” is racking up a lot of losses recently, isn’t it? Congratulations @MoiraDeemingMP’.
Rowling openly criticizes certain aspects of transgender activism, which she perceives as potentially harmful to women’s rights and safety.
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.
Harry Potter author and outspoken gender critic JK Rowling (pictured) congratulated Deeming following her libel victory over Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto.
Expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming (pictured) has won her defamation case against Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto and has been awarded $300,000 in damages.
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.
The total bill for Pesutto could rise to $2 million, according to the Herald Sun.
In his ruling, Mr Justice O’Callaghan struck down Mr Pesutto’s defenses of public interest, honest opinion and qualified common law privilege.
He also said that the defense of contextual truth was not relevant.
Outside court, Ms. Deeming gave a brief statement to waiting media.
JK Rowling reposted Ms Deeming’s press statement to her 14.2 million followers. The publication is in the photo.
“I am obviously delighted with today’s outcome and am very grateful to the court for its prompt consideration,” she said.
“I just want to tell everyone who stood by me to think that we are going to go out and get sex-based rights for women and child safeguards for boys.”
Judge O’Callaghan had some harsh words about Pesutto’s testimony during the trial, noting that his cross-examination lasted four days.
“Its length was largely due to its inability or refusal to give a simple answer to fairly simple questions,” Justice O’Callaghan wrote in his ruling.
The judge said he understood that when politicians “are immersed in the push and pull of politics” and face difficult questions at news conferences “their job may involve deflecting questions, moving on to another topic or running out of time.”
However, Judge O’Callaghan said such evasions were “not the role of a witness in judicial proceedings”.
Pesutto (pictured with his wife Betty Pesutto) was not in Federal Court to hear the ruling against him.
Neo-Nazi protesters broke into a women’s rights protest in March 2023, prompting Pesutto to expel Deeming from the Liberal Party.
“Again and again Mr. Pesutto gave long and indifferent answers,” he wrote.
During the trial which lasted three and a half weeks 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 his protest. .
Pesutto was also sued by British women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen and fellow Let Women Speak 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.