A former Narrabri mayor has been awarded $100,000 in defamation damages over a Facebook page operated by a ratepayer activist who likened him to Harvey Weinstein.
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A NSW Supreme Court judge ruled ex-mayor of Narrabri Shire Council, Conrad Bolton, was repeatedly defamed on a public Facebook page, titled Narri Leaks.
Justice Anthony Payne found Mr Bolton had been defamed on several occasions including by unjustifiably being compared with disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein.
Ratepayer activist and former town clerk Stephen Stoltenberg, who operated Narri Leaks, has been ordered to pay the damages, interest and legal costs of Mr Bolton.
In his decision delivered in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, Justice Payne referred to the "public taunting", bullying and hectoring carried out by Mr Stoltenberg in relation to the award-winning Mr Bolton, who had a "long and distinguished history of service in the Narrabri Shire" in north-western NSW.
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“The tone of the Narri Leaks Facebook page, at least those parts of which Mr Stoltenberg was the author, may properly be described as bullying and high-handed,” Justice Payne said in a lengthy judgement.
Justice Payne found that “Mr Bolton suffered damage to his reputation by reason of the attacks by Narri Leaks”.
“I accept Mr Bolton’s evidence that the continuous attacks by Narri Leaks were effective in turning at least some parts of the community against him,” he ruled.
“He believed, I accept sincerely, that a small number of people had conducted a campaign of malicious lies on social media against him which he could not stop.
“Mr Bolton said, and I accept, that the Narri Leaks page had been devastating and ‘soul destroying’ and he felt under a prolonged attack.”
The case involved events which occurred in 2015 and 2016 in Narrabri.