The Daily Telegraph was warned that the woman who complained about Geoffrey Rush’s alleged conduct during a 2015 Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear was “distressed and extremely fragile”.
But the newspaper published the allegations anyway because they were “motivated to harm” Rush, his lawyers have argued in fresh court documents.
Rush is suing the Telegraph over a series of articles published in November and December of last year. He claims the articles defamed him by portraying him as a “pervert” and “sexual predator”.
The Telegraph is relying on the defence of qualified privilege after Justice Michael Wigney previously threw out the newspaper’s truth defence. He has also refused to allow it to subpoena the theatre company.
The qualified privilege defence in defamation hearings in Australia means a publisher must show the defamatory articles were in the public interest and that it acted reasonably.
The Telegraph argues the allegations were “matters of proper and legitimate public interest” following a string of allegations concerning “sexual misconduct, bullying and harassment in the entertainment industry”, which started with the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
But in new documents filed in the federal court by Rush’s lawyers this week, they argue the Telegraph was motivated by “malice” and that the newspaper published the articles “predominantly for the improper motive of harming” Rush.
Rush’s lawyers claim that before publishing the articles, the newspaper was told by the theatre company that the female cast member who made a complaint against Rush was “distressed and extremely fragile”, and that the company “took the view that it was the complainant’s story to tell it at a time of her choosing and on her own terms”.
“Notwithstanding that, the [Telegraph] still published the matters complained of … because they were motivated to harm [Rush] rather than to support the alleged complainant,” Rush’s lawyers state.
The new documents also claim the Telegraph was given a statement by the theatre company that said the complaint was “made to the STC, not by the STC, and was not a conclusion of impropriety”.
But the Telegraph did not publish that part of the statement, and instead wrote in one of the pieces at the centre of the defamation claim that “two STC sources said the company stood by her claims”.
A court-ordered mediation was held between the two parties on Wednesday. No other mediation sessions have currently been scheduled.
Wigney made orders this week requiring the Telegraph to inform Rush by 23 July whether it “maintain[ed] any defence” of qualified privilege.
If so, Wigney ordered the Telegraph to reveal the “identity of any confidential source” relied upon. Or, alternatively, to provide “a statement that the respondents do not propose to disclose those identities” and “any evidence relied upon to support the assertion that each source is a confidential source”.
