Victorian Liberals to hold another preselection after candidate who defeated Moira Deeming withdraws | Victorian politics

The Victorian Liberals will hold another preselection meeting to choose a candidate for the top spot in the party’s upper house after it was revealed the man who replaced Moira Deeming wrote a court character reference for a friend found guilty of grooming a 15-year-old girl.

Dinesh Gourisetty, who defeated Deeming in Sunday’s primary vote for the party’s western metropolitan region candidates in the upcoming November election, told the board that he did not want to resign following the statements.

But Victorian leader Jess Wilson said she was “not welcome” in her team and party chairman Philip Davis issued a statement on Monday afternoon saying Gourisetty was withdrawing his candidacy.

“After yesterday’s preselection meeting concluded, the Liberal Party received information that was considered to be of a serious nature regarding Mr. Dinesh Gourisetty,” Davis said.

Davis said the executive decided another convention would be needed to top the list and Gourisetty would not be eligible to attend. It is unclear whether Deeming will compete again.

In a letter seen by Guardian Australia, Gourisetty wrote that he did not know Kashyap Patel would plead guilty to charges of grooming a child under 16, sexual assault and inappropriate communication when he wrote the character reference in 2024.

The charges related to the then-40-year-old man, a married father of two, grooming and assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 2021. He was found guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison.

In his remarks announcing the sentence, Judge Peter Rozen found Patel to be “a man of good character as set out in three character references submitted to the court”; among them was one from Gourisetty, described as “a good friend of four years”.

Gourisetty said he was “led to believe” that Patel “denies the charges and maintains his innocence” at the time he signed the letter, adding that the letter “was written by a lawyer and reflects only my personal experience of him as a party member and volunteer.”

“I had no knowledge of the seriousness or exact nature of the allegations. I acted in good faith based on what I knew at the time,” the letter states.

“Let me be absolutely clear; I strongly and unequivocally condemn the actions for which Mr. Patel has now been convicted. These actions are unacceptable and I do not support or excuse them in any way.”

Gourisetty’s letter also notes that this is not unprecedented, noting that former Tony Abbott and John Howard also “provided character references or expressed personal support for individuals facing serious allegations based on their knowledge and beliefs at the time.”

Both former prime ministers wrote testimonials for Cardinal George Pell, who was found guilty of five counts of child sexual abuse in 2019. Pell’s conviction was overturned by the high court in 2020.

“I respectfully request that my actions be viewed from the same perspective of justice and intent,” Gourisetty wrote.

He said he had worked “day and night” for the Liberals for 15 years and was “heartbroken to have been forced to stand down and was even advised to consider resigning from the party I have devotedly served for so many years”.

Gourisetty said he had indicated Monday morning that he might consider stepping aside “in a moment of distress” but had not formally withdrawn his candidacy and had no intention of doing so.

Her account differs from that of Davis, who wrote in an email to the executive committee shortly before 11 a.m. that Gourisetty “notified me this morning that she was withdrawing her candidacy.”

It also puts him on a collision course with Wilson, who said on Monday: “Mr Gourisetty is not welcome in my team. I made that clear to the party organization this morning.”

Wilson had lobbied delegates to vote for Deeming at Sunday’s primary meeting.

According to many of Gourisetty’s supporters, Gourisetty secured the primary with 39 votes compared to Deeming’s 26 votes; Another Liberal MP representing the area, Trung Luu, received three votes. Luu retained second place in the voting after a separate vote in which Deeming did not object.

Gourisetty failed to win the 2022 primary, in part because of food safety law violations to which he pleaded guilty in 2019.

But this time, sources said, he had the support of multiple branches in Melbourne’s western suburbs and the executive committee of the party, which had a moderate bent under Davis.

A member of the executive committee who is not aligned with Davis emailed the rest of the executive committee on Monday, accusing the “left faction of the party” of supporting a “pedophile supporter.”

“Abandoning Moira was always going to be a disaster,” the member wrote, adding that this happened “before I even knew about the court document I received.” They also questioned the vetting process, asking what the committee responsible for selecting candidates did.

A senior Liberal source said there was “no way” Gourisetty would have been pre-selected if this information had been known, and claimed the distribution of the material after the vote was designed to cause “maximum damage” to the moderate group on the executive committee.

Gourisetty has been contacted for comment.