Alice Voigt defamed Bruce Goldberg in Rose Bay Community group
A single mum has been ordered to pay $35,000 after a judge decided comments she made on an eastern suburbs’ community Facebook page had defamed a rival page’s admin. However, the judge said the proceedings should never have ended up in court.
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A single mother at the heart of a Facebook stoush which tore an eastern suburbs’ community apart has been ordered to pay $35,000 for defaming a rival group’s admin.
Alice Voigt has this morning lost a defamation case brought by Bondi’s Bruce Goldberg over a post on the Facebook group ‘The Rose Bay Community – Official Group’.
Mr Goldberg said the post inferred he was a threat to local women and had caused locals to shun him.
The court heard the post from November 2018 began “Dear women of Rose Bay”.
“Please be extremely careful when interacting with Bruce Goldberg on the local websites,” it continued.
“He gets a kick out of intimidating, bullying and threatening women.”
“Too many women have been killed by stalkers and unstable people to let this sort of stuff scare us into submission,” the post continued.
Despite ordering Ms Voigt to pay $35,000, Judge Richard Weinstein said Mr Goldberg must pay her $8000 in legal fees.
“Those proceedings ought never to have been commenced, and the defendant is entitled to her costs without having to endure a costs assessment,” he wrote in his judgment.
Judge Weinstein said the numerous comments within the post “had the effect of aggravation” but “should be seen in the context of the defamation generally, and in particular its limited dissemination”.
The “closed” Facebook page had 3234 members at the time and was not accessible to members of the public generally, with the judge stating it was probably seen by up to 250 people.
Mr Goldberg launched litigation in November 2018 against Ms Voigt in the District Court.
Ms Voigt’s defence said the line in the post about “too many women have been killed by stalkers” would not be understood by a reader as alluding to Mr Goldberg but “understood as part of the unfortunate treatment that women have experienced at the hands of others and that it would have been understood as urging women not to yield to bullying.”
The post was deleted on March 2019.
Ms Voigt offered to make public apologies but it was refused.
The freelance voiceover artist and entrepreneur runs what was then the rival Facebook group “Rose Bay, Bondi, Vaucluse, Double Bay Community Group”.
“Alice Voigt Guilty of defamation!” he posted to his 3900 group members this morning after Judge Weinstein ruled in his favour.
His page once touted itself as “The original and official Rose Bay community group” but this banner has since been removed.
He told the Wentworth Courier in November that his ultimate aim had been to shut down the rival Facebook group, claiming it had been allowing bullying of him on the page.
As part of an entirely separate settlement against an administrator of the page, Bianca Havas, ‘The Rose Bay Community’ Facebook group was closed in November 2019, exactly one year after he initiated litigation on Ms Voigt.
It had been running for seven years.
Mr Goldberg’s legal team stated the post insinuated he was a “stalker” who enjoyed “bullying women” and “so mentally unstable that he was likely to kill women”.
He gave evidence at the hearing and said that he was “shocked” and “speechless” when he read the post, he had difficulty sleeping and felt his reputation had been “smashed”.
Mr Goldberg said the defamatory comments began when he corrected someone on the spelling of a street name.
Single mum Ms Voigt, who now lives on a rural NSW property, opened a Go Fund Me page in September 2019 called “Fund for defamation court case”.
It has since raised $4350.
Administrators of Facebook pages can be liable for defamatory comments made by third parties on public pages, often referred to as “suburban defamation”, following a Supreme Court ruling in June.
Both Ms Voigt and Mr Goldberg have been contacted for comment.