Former Clive Palmer candidate wins defamation lawsuit against brother, warns of pitfalls of YouTube videos

A FORMER Palmer United Party candidate has won a defamation lawsuit against his estranged brother, who falsely accused him of being a fraudster and “psychopath” in a series of bizarre YouTube rants.

A FORMER Palmer United Party candidate has won a defamation lawsuit against his estranged brother, who falsely accused him of being a fraudster and “psychopath” in a series of bizarre YouTube rants.

Vince Scali, who ran as a PUP candidate in the seat of Adelaide at the last election, has been awarded $20,000 damages over the videos posted by his brother John Scali from 2013.

Mr Scali, 68, said friends alerted him to the videos, which included titles such as “Evil Sicko Clan” and “Palmer United Psychopath Candidate”.

John Scali, 67, admitted producing and posting the videos, but claimed truth as a defence and issued a counterclaim seeking $10.3m.

He told the District Court he had established his brother was a psychopath through research, including watching episodes of “Dr Phil”.

John Scali also falsely claimed his older brother had repeatedly defrauded people in business deals, had Botox injections and had sent money to Filipino prostitutes.

Judge Julie McIntyre found all of the allegations made by John Scali were unfounded and defamatory, ruling this was despite them being “outlandish”.

“To paraphrase the colloquial term, if enough mud is thrown some of it will inevitably stick,” she found.

“The imputations are so serious, repeated and unambiguous that it is likely they would lower the standing of (Mr Scali) within the community.”

Judge McIntyre found John Scali’s claims that his brother had caused the suicide of a worker as “entirely without foundation”, noting he had been detained briefly under the Mental Health Act in 2007.

Vince Scali, who has also previously run as an Adelaide City Council candidate, said he was forced to take court action to stop his brother’s bizarre campaign.

“It wasn’t about the money — he’ll never be able to pay me — I just wanted a retraction and apology saying he has made all this up,” Mr Scali said.

Mr Scali told The Advertiser his greatest hope was that online media outlets such as YouTube would establish a quicker complaints system, after it took six months to get the videos removed.

“This is a new frontier, where people are being unfairly hounded by people with mental health issues, but can’t get any action,” he said.

“It took six months of calls and emails before YouTube removed them, and some of them are still on there now ... they need to address these things as soon as possible because they can be very damaging.”

Mr Scali, who is a real estate consultant and auctioneer, said he was relieved the court had ruled in his favour.

“I had to take action to clear my name and to stop him from posting this stuff online, so I am just glad it’s over now,” he said.