Melbourne legal battle: Former Demons president Glen Bartlett to sue Kate Roffey, board members
Former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett has launched legal action against club boss Kate Roffey and three other directors.
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Former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett has launched legal action against club boss Kate Roffey and three other directors in an escalation of the Demons’ bitter boardroom brawl.
Bartlett filed a writ in the Supreme Court of Western Australia on Friday alleging he has been defamed by Roffey and fellow board members Steve Morris, David Robb and David Rennick.
The action is separate to his Supreme Court defamation case against Age football journalists Jake Niall and Caroline Wilson relating to his sudden exit as club president last April.
Court documents reveal Bartlett is seeking “damages for defamation, including aggravated compensatory damages and special damages” and an “injunction restraining the defendants from republishing the defamatory matter”.
The writ alleges all four directors defamed Bartlett in a board statement published on June 17 this year.
It also alleges that Roffey defamed him in communications to News Corp, Fairfax and Channel 9 between September 17 and September 22 last year and in an extended interview she gave on 3AW radio in June.
The writ reveals Bartlett has engaged top Perth defamation lawyer Martin Bennett to lead the case.
Bartlett broke his silence on his murky departure as club president three months ago, claiming he had been thwarted in his fight to keep Melbourne free of “workplace bullying, gambling, harassment and illegal drugs”.
The ex-Demons boss alleged that he and his partner had since been subjected to “threats, deceitful conduct and a public campaign to discredit us”.
Roffey, who replaced Bartlett as Demons president in round 6 last year, told 3AW in June that she had “no idea” why the AFL was holding crisis talks with the club last February and did not know a meeting with league supremos Gillon McLachlan and Richard Goyder had even taken place “until I read it in the paper”.
She has previously said that Bartlett’s exit was the result of months of “succession planning”.
In the aftermath of Bartlett’s departure it was suggested he had lost the support of the football department and most board members after he had publicly lambasted the team in mid-2020.
But the Herald Sun has since revealed that from late 2020 until his exit, there had been a major disagreement between Bartlett and other senior club figures, including CEO Gary Pert, regarding concerns about alleged bullying and behavioural issues involving senior coach Simon Goodwin.
In February 2021, the board even considered standing Goodwin down.
Internal club emails show Bartlett, a workplace lawyer and OHS specialist, was pushing for the introduction of illicit drug testing for all club leaders on the eve of the 2021 season - a move Pert warned would trigger a mass exodus of staff.
Goodwin has repeatedly denied having any behavioural issues, while the Demons’ board fired back at Bartlett in a statement in June, declaring that it had made a “unanimous decision” to remove him.
Bartlett had been re-elected unopposed for another 12-month term just weeks before his sudden departure.
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Originally published as Melbourne legal battle: Former Demons president Glen Bartlett to sue Kate Roffey, board members
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