Canning mayor wins $250,000 payout over defamatory Facebook posts
The City of Canning mayor has won $250,000 in damages after the High Court found a taxpayer published a fake Facebook post showing him supporting a Federal MP as part of an “obsessive” smear campaign to paint him as corrupt.
In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, WA Supreme Court Justice Marcus Solomon found that Richard Clive Aldridge published ten defamatory posts about Patrick Hall between September 2021 and September 2022, most of them via Facebook.
The decision traced the origins of the disrespect to a long-running dispute over Shelley Beach Park, an off-leash dog beach on the banks of the Canning River, in which Hall supported the proposal for a cafe and Aldridge opposed it.
Judge Solomon saw Aldridge turn his focus to Hall, who has been supporting Canning council candidates via his mayoral Facebook page.
The judge said the “volume and persistence” and some of the content of Aldridge’s complaints and applications were “bordering on the outlandish”.
“I conclude that Mr. Aldridge’s lack of impartiality and his obsessive disdain for Mr. Hall are so deep-seated and pervasive that his evidence cannot be relied upon unless supported by contemporaneous documentary evidence,” Judge Solomon said.
The most serious broadcast was a fake ad showing Hall supporting former Liberal MP Ben Morton using his mayoral title, which Aldridge had included in complaints to authorities.
Judge Solomon found this involved accusations that Hall had broken the law and was corrupt.
The judge ruled that a mayor has the right to approve candidates for local government elections.
The decision noted that in March 2022, Aldridge filed 11 separate minor breach complaints spanning more than 300 pages with the Local Government Standards panel, each alleging a breach arising from Hall’s endorsement of candidates.
None of these complaints were successful.
Mr Aldridge, who represented himself at the hearing, argued that the posts were protected by honest opinions.
Judge Solomon accepted that he honestly believed Aldridge’s views but found they were motivated by contempt.
“Mr. Aldridge’s obsessive preoccupation with Mr. Hall created a persistent self-righteousness that blinded him from any objective perspective and prevented him from responding rationally,” Judge Solomon said.
Judge Solomon found that continuing to publish the allegations after repeated negative decisions showed “unconscionability” and “bad faith”.
Judge Solomon accepted evidence that the campaign had harmed Hall and his family.
“I had no doubt that Mr. Hall was quite seriously affected emotionally and psychologically by Mr. Aldridge’s actions,” he wrote.
The court found that Hall felt “unfairly maligned” and “badly exposed” by confidentiality provisions that prevented him from publicly disclosing the dismissal of complaints against him.
Carla Hildebrandt is a journalist at WAtoday. She previously worked as a courts reporter for the ABC’s Four Corners and for The Daily Telegraph in Sydney. For secure communication: carlahildebrandt@proton.me.Connect via email.
