‘Torturous’: Crime reporter Steve Barrett fails to win $500,000 payout
A judge has handed down a decision in the case of a veteran journalist who endured a six-year court ordeal after previously being accused of blackmail.
National
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The fabrications of a self-confessed cocaine-sniffing property developer who told a “blizzard of lies” have failed to win an almost half-a-million dollar claim for legal costs for veteran crime reporter Steve Barrett.
Supreme Court Judge Natalie Adams on Wednesday handed down her decision rejecting a costs application, bringing to a close a six-year ordeal for Barrett who had a blackmail prosecution against him abandoned.
Barrett said “it has been a long and torturous road for me and my family and nobody has ever really explained why I was charged.”
“The AFP warned the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions not to continue with the case.”
Judge Adams said in her judgment: “Although there are unanswered questions about aspects of the Crown case, the central question about whether Mr Barrett was a participant in a blackmail or an innocent journalist used by the offenders was a matter properly for a jury to determine.”
Barrett was charged in 2018 while he was investigating what eventually turned out to be Australia’s biggest tax fraud case after a tip-off from Daniel Hausman, a property developer he had met only once before.
It turned out Hausman had engineered a plan to blackmail those involved in the fraud and use Barrett as leverage.
Barrett maintained and Hausman ultimately conceded, Barrett had no knowledge of the blackmail plan Hausman had hatched, or of Hausman’s threat to use Barrett exposing the tax fraudsters in the media, to get them to pay millions of dollars to him.
Barrett said he had been lured into the middle of a dramatic true crime story unaware he was being used as a pawn. He at all times maintained he was chasing a big story which involved Adam Cranston, and his father the then deputy tax commissioner Michael Cranston. Adam Cranston has been jailed for the tax fraud. Michael Cranston was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Hausman and his co-conspirator Daniel Rostankovski have been jailed for the blackmail which netted them $25 million.
While Barrett was pursuing documents which could prove Hausman’s wild allegations, the AFP were also watching and swooped, raiding numerous properties and arresting a string of people. Barrett was raided but was not arrested.
After being told by the AFP he was not considered a suspect or a co-conspirator, a year later the AFP did a backflip and charged Barrett. Subsequently AFP emails emerged revealing they had dropped the idea of taking a statement from Hausman after 17 attempts, because they believed he was unreliable and untruthful.
Barrett’s trial in 2021 was aborted after a hung jury. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions ordered a retrial but Barrett had exhausted his financial means spending almost $500,000 to clear his name.
Then the case began to dramatically unravel after it came to light that evidence given in a string of other court proceedings showed Hausman had admitted persistently telling lies about Barrett and others.
Former District Court Judge and barrister for Barrett, Dr Greg Woods KC, made a submission to the court arguing for a permanent stay of proceedings based on Hausman’s mendacity saying he was a possible rival for renowned fictional tall-tale teller Baron Munchausen.
He said the further pursuit of Barrett would bring the administration of the legal system into disrepute.
The CDPP then dramatically dropped the charge against Barrett.
In deciding the case for costs to be awarded Judge Adams had to be convinced that if the prosecution had all the relevant facts it would not have been reasonable to institute the proceedings.
Dr Woods argued on Barrett’s behalf that “Hausman was at all time a known liar, but the degree of his willingness to continue lying (after professedly co-operating with authorities at the time of his plea deals and later) was spectacularly demonstrated both at and after the aborted trial of Barrett …”
Dr Woods argued that Hausman continued to lie during Barrett’s trial, during subsequent trial of a lawyer Sevag Chalabian and during a compulsory examination regarding proceeds of crime which showed his dangerous unreliability as a witness.
Dr Woods also argued that the prosecution did not take into account Barrett’s history as a story-breaking investigative journalist and apparently did not do so until 2023 when the prosecution was abandoned.
The case against Barrett had relied mostly on Hausman’s word and his interpretation of intercepted telephone calls and text messages between the two of them. It’s argued that those interpretations were twisted to suit Hausman’s story.
None of the calls or texts ever discussed Barrett being paid, receiving any sort of monetary reward, or that a blackmail was underway.
Hausman’s co-conspirator in the blackmail Rostankovski never gave evidence against Barrett.
Dr Woods argued evidence in Barrett’s trial showed he was indeed chasing a story because otherwise there was no need for him to contact A Current Affair to pitch the story, or to contact a Supreme Court media officer to check an affidavit which Barrett referred to as a “smoking gun” document was genuine.
Crown prosecutor Patricia McDonald argued it was reasonable to prosecute Mr Barrett and that decision was supported by other evidence, including telephone intercepts and a listening device.
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