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.
A fake endorsement that Aldridge shared with regulators.Credit: WA Supreme Court
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.
City of Canning Mayor Patrick Hall.Credit: Facebook
The judge said the “volume and persistence” and some of the content of Aldridge’s complaints and applications were “bordering on the outlandish”.
Loading
“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.
