Three-time Olympian sues sporting body over ‘false imputations of paedophilia’

A three-time Olympic figure skater is suing NSW’s ice skating association for defamation, claiming it made “false imputations of paedophilia and child molestation” against him in an email to members.

Documents released by the NSW Supreme Court on Friday reveal Brendan Kerry, 30, is seeking damages and an order permanently restraining the sporting body from repeating the claims in the email, sent to members on May 16 last year.

Brendan Kerry skates during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Capital Indoor Stadium.Credit: Getty Images

Kerry was on the board of the NSW Ice Skating Association (NSWISA) until May 2024 but stood down when he received a lifetime coaching ban from the US Centre for SafeSport, which found he had engaged in “sexual misconduct involving a minor”.

In the statement of claim, Kerry’s lawyers say the finding by the US Centre for Safe Sport “involved a female [in California] who was 17 years old when Kerry was 21”.

The age of consent in California is 18. In NSW, it is 16.

Since retiring from competition in 2022, Kerry had worked as a coach, including at Sydney’s Macquarie Ice Rink, coaching several students to international competitions.

The email to members included the sanction handed down by the US Centre for SafeSport, and said the association had concerns for the “physical and mental health, safety and wellbeing of all members, and how this situation affects our skating community”.

Kerry’s lawyers say failing to include the girl’s age in the email was a “deliberate failure” of the association which knew “that in NSW, and elsewhere in Australia, ‘a minor’ for the purposes of consent laws is a child 15 years old or younger”.

After news broke of the US ban in Australian media in 2024, Kerry denied the sexual misconduct allegations in a statement to the ABC.

“After hearing nothing from the US Centre for SafeSport for almost three years … I received their decision with no advance warning whatsoever, sanctioning me for alleged violations that I did not commit,” he said in May last year.

“That decision is not final and I intend to challenge this suspension and request arbitration before a neutral arbitrator as is my right.”

The US Centre for SafeSport upheld the ban on September 16.

A preliminary hearing for the defamation claim took place in Sydney on Friday. Kerry has accused the NSWISA of implying he is a paedophile, had sexually molested a child, and was thereby a danger to members of the skating community, in the email sent to Kerry’s professional peers and students.

The claim states Kerry had subsequently been contacted by third parties, including the parents of his students, expressing their concern over the email and had suffered substantial hurt, distress and embarrassment.

Counsel for NSWISA revealed on Friday they would rely on evidence from three women: the 17-year-old who was the subject of the SafeSport findings, a second American claimant, and a third female who was 14 at the time of an alleged incident said to have occurred in Queensland where Kerry had travelled for an ice skating competition.

The association’s written defence is yet to be released by the court.

NSWISA president Peter Lynch and secretary Fiona Kusilek are also named as defendants in the suit and they attended court on Friday.

In October 2024, Kusilek made a report to the NSW Office of Children’s Guardian about Kerry on the basis that he was “still working” with children. Kerry’s lawyers will argue she had no “valid reason” to report Kerry and a text message she sent on October 4 saying she “made sure” Kerry would not continue coaching was evidence she had “a malicious intention to hurt and harm” him.

They also claim Lynch’s statements “to the effect that [Kerry] is a paedophile” showed malicious intent to hurt or harm Kerry, as well as that Lynch had an unspecified “conflict of interest” against Kerry and his family, claiming this was acknowledged by Ice Skating Australia (ISA) in June 2024.

Kerry’s mother, Monica MacDonald, was on the ISA coaching committee and his stepfather, John Dunn, was a member of the ISA board. Both stood down after the SafeSport ban was issued. They were also suspended from their jobs at Macquarie Ice Rink.

On May 15, 2024, ISA president Wendy Meik also published a statement saying it had no prior knowledge of SafeSport’s investigation but was “in the process of gathering and considering all information available” about the US sanction.

Kerry was an eight-time Australian national champion and competed in three Winter Olympic Games – in 2014, 2018 and 2022, when he was one of Australia’s flagbearers at the opening ceremony in Beijing.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Kerry was first notified of the SafeSport investigation into him in 2021, before he was named to the Australian team for the Beijing Olympics.

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