The Snitch: Hefty legal bill for John Ibrahim’s son Daniel Taylor after losing defamation case

How much is the legal bill for the son of Kings Cross boss John Ibrahim? And why won’t the identities of a group of naughty lawyers be revealed? Will they be banned from working anyway?READ IT in The Snitch.

Defamation is an expensive game.

Daniel Taylor, the son of Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim, is about to find out how expensive.

He sued The Sunday Telegraph and lost over a 24-page special report that delved into the inner workings of the Ibrahim family.

The case went for the better part of two years before Justice Anna Katzmann ruled that Taylor had lost.

She ordered he pay his own lawyers and pick up the tab for those used by The Sunday Telegraph.

Daniel Taylor’s case was before the courts for two years – and then he appealed. Picture: AAP Image

The rough estimates on legal costs for both parties are in the seven figure department.

Taylor doubled down and rolled the dice on an appeal, which he lost on Monday when the Full Court of the Federal Court again ruled against Taylor and ordered him to pay the costs for both sides for the original defamation trial and the appeal.

Taylor also received a serious tut-tutting from the bench of the Full Court of the Federal Court in his appeal, over what Taylor had to say to a friend while explaining why he thought he had been arrested, during a 2017 conversation that was tapped by police.

“The Australian Federal Police were coming after him — that is, because, as he put it, he had ‘been bagging Jews in America too much on Facebook’,” the Full Court said.

“Even if, as (Taylor) submitted, the ordinary reasonable reader would have regarded the statement as ‘a joke’ (a characterisation with which we emphatically disagree — there is nothing remotely humorous about it), it still indicates that the appellant had no concern that he was being investigated for organised crime.”

Taylor is facing a potential seven-figure legal bill. Picture: AAP Image

THE WOLVES OF PHILLIP ST

The group of lawyers known as “The Wolves of Phillip St” will be breathing a collective sigh of relief this week and for the next three years.

That’s because their identities will remain a secret after court rulings this week.

And they’d be seriously relieved too given what was potentially going to be revealed about them.

The information came out in the context of a court case, but because of a non-publication order, we can’t legally reveal which one it was, or its nature.

Outside the court case, there had long been gossip in the legal fraternity about sex and drug use and supply within the firm.

On Monday, the judge rejected a legal application by News Corp, the publisher of this newspaper, and Channel 9 to identify some of the parties and gain access to some of the evidence from the case.

They may not be off the hook.

This is because the judge hearing the case referred eight lawyers for investigation by the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner and the NSW Law Society.

The judge referred six lawyers from one firm for investigation. Another two from outside the firm were also referred.

The OLSC and Law Society were given transcripts of the proceedings and other material and now have to decide whether they are fit to continue practising as lawyers.

So they might all get struck off anyway. The question they have been asked to answer is whether the lawyers were fit to continue working as lawyers.

The judge made a non publication order for one of the lawyers for three years after hearing evidence that they were suicidal. It was also extended for another lawyer.

The two lawyers outside the firm had their application for a non-publication order dismissed, but promptly trotted off to the Supreme Court to get further interim orders pending an appeal.

The decision on Monday was a surprise result given that the judge was making noises during the case that indicated they were going to reveal the identities of the lawyers.

This included raising the question of why shouldn’t the lawyers be named to prevent every other lawyer being suspected of engaging in such hedonistic or questionable behaviour.

“Why doesn’t the public have a right to know who the Wolves of Phillip St are?” the judge asked a lawyer representing one of the unnamed lawyers during the hearings.

See you in three years.
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