Couple sued for defamation by Tamborine school principal launch appeal

The long-running saga of a couple sued for defamation by the principal of a southeast Queensland school has taken a new turn, as the pair launch an appeal and call in computer experts who claim to have helped solve an infamous Queensland crime.

A couple controversially sued for defamation by a Gold Coast high school teacher have called in computer sleuths who claimed to have helped solve an infamous Queensland crime, as part of a court appeal.

Donna and Miguel Baluskas last year lost a bitter defamation case launched by Tracey Brose, principal at Tamborine Mountain State High which their son previously attended.

The couple have lodged an appeal against the $6000 defamation judgment which threatens to bankrupt them for the second time.

Mrs Brose, who spent almost $700,000 on the case in which she originally sued eight parents for $1.5 million, over a series of online posts, is defending the appeal.

The Baluskases have obtained a forensic report backing their claim that their comments – which the court heard included that Mrs Brose was an “evil, nasty horrible woman” who “thinks she is an investigator, judge jury and executioner” – were never actually published.

Donna and Miguel Baluskas together outside court after the verdict. Picture: Adam Head

The legally-certified report by digital media experts Steven and Julianne Toogood claims District Court Judge Catherine Muir got it wrong when she found that the couple’s comments were published as part of a change.org petition to get Mrs Brose reinstated after she was mysteriously suspended from the school in 2016.

In a court affidavit, the Toogoods state that they have ”extensive knowledge identifying fake digital media profiles” after being hired by major companies to investigate and rectify unfair online comments as part of reputation management.

They state that their work has included identifying crimes, including a young Gold Coast mother who in 2014 was sentenced to six years’ jail after being found guilty of causing her four-year-old daughter grievous bodily harm by force-feeding her daughter chemotherapy drugs.

Brisbane District Court heard the woman deliberately made her daughter deathly ill and set up a Facebook page to highlight her daughter’s bogus life-threatening condition and reap sympathy and donations.

The Toogoods’ analysis found that the comments over which the Baluskases were successfully sued “could not have been posted on change.org” and that the couple never signed the petition.

Mr and Mrs Toogood are no strangers to controversy, having been granted a mistrial for stalking charges relating to former Cassowary Coast deputy mayor Ricky Taylor last year.

Tracey Brose during a defamation hearing at Southport in February 2020. Picture: Adam Head

The Baluskases had to represent themselves during the defamation hearing after they were bankrupted by Mrs Brose in late 2019 for failing to pay almost $57,000 in initial legal costs.

Lawyer John Rivett, a veteran former barrister, said he had taken on their appeal pro bono “because I think they’ve been very hard done by”.

The Baluskases’ bid to appeal against an order ordering them to pay the rest of Mrs Brose’s legal bill was tossed out by the Court of Appeal on Friday but they have vowed to continue the fight against the defamation judgment.

Mrs Brose has also appealed Judge Muir’s ruling to throw out a defamation claim against another Tamborine High parent, Trudi Arnold.

In a scathing judgment last February, the judge said the principal’s testimony was ‘often contrived. and on occasion revealed a complete lack of insight, perspective and measure’.