Trouble in paradise: How a Dalkeith verge dispute escaped millionaires’ row and wound up in court

When former Nedlands councillor Andrew Mangano rose to call on the administration to intervene in earthworks on its most prestigious street in February 2022, more than two dozen people watched as he aired suspicions the works were unauthorised.

Among them was Meredith McGarry, who was tuning in from her beachfront Eagle Bay abode 250 kilometres south of the council chambers in which the debate about her $12.4 million Jutland Parade property was unfolding.

The block at 52 Jutland Parade, Dalkeith. Inset: Rob Anderson KC with Paul McGarry (top). Nedlands councillor Andrew Mangano with high-profile defamation lawyer Sue Chrysanthou (bottom).Credit: Jesinta Burton/Google Maps

She was warned about the threat to their “forever home” on millionaires’ row by her property developer husband, Paul, who was monitoring the meeting from their address in Hong Kong.

Mangano did not know it at the time, but his advocacy on behalf of concerned residents on the banks of the Swan River would see him slapped with a concerns notice.

Three years later, almost to the day, he would find himself in the David Malcolm Justice Centre fending off a gag order and a demand for damages, including aggravated damages, over comments he made at two subsequent council meetings that were later republished by the media.

The pair accused Mangano of engaging in a sustained hate campaign underpinned by a vendetta, poisoning neighbours against them and feeding information to local journalists.

The former councillor, however, vigorously defended the claim on the basis his statements were substantially true, and rubbished allegations of malice.

The five-day trial unearthed hundreds of exhibits, from photographs to correspondence laying bare how the stoush was thrust into the public arena and took the McGarrys’ famously private neighbours along with it.

Laying the foundations

Tonya and Malcolm McCusker.Credit: Matthew Tompsett

After more than two decades living interstate and overseas, the McGarrys enlisted the help of luxury real estate expert William Porteous to scour the western suburbs for a “forever home” near Meredith’s alma-mater Methodist Ladies College, where she wanted to send their two daughters.

It was a stark contrast to the skyscraper they occupied on Hong Kong Island and the family’s South West holiday home, but the pair settled on the vacant block at 52 Jutland Parade in December 2021.

In securing the $12.4 million property, the pair landed a blank canvas spanning 1957 square metres with sweeping river views that would soon be home to a five-storey mansion.

They had also landed several high-profile neighbours.

To their right, former WA governor Malcolm McCusker and his philanthropist wife Tonya, and to their left Singaporean businessman Abdul Rahim Valibhoy, vascular surgeon Dr Steve Baker, well-known obstetrician Bruce Bellinge and APM founder Megan Wynne.

The street is book ended by several properties owned by billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes, his wife Christine, and his son Ryan.

Paul met the first of his neighbours on January 12, 2022, exchanging niceties with Tonya McCusker from a boat on the river as she mowed the lawn.

Emails tendered as evidence show the pair continued to chat online, with Paul vowing to minimise disruption during their home’s construction and Tonya inviting them over for a glass of bubbles and imploring them to pick “Chrissie” Stokes’ brain for home design advice on her return from Vale.

Tonya told the court her only concern was being a welcoming neighbour, and that remained the case when she received an email on the evening of January 30 forewarning her of minor clean up works on the overgrown vacant lot.

But the following morning, Tonya was blocked from exiting her driveway by two double semi-trailers and returned to a convoy of trucks dumping fill and sand swirling around the property boundary.

The activity caught the attention of other residents, including Baker’s wife Loretta and Mangano, who McCusker told the court she assured that the McGarrys were merely tidying up the lot.

“I don’t believe they are telling you the whole story,” Mangano told Tonya, prompting her to seek assurances from the couple themselves, warning council were preparing a stop work notice and expressing concern about the rising ground level alongside her boundary wall.

“The fill was spilling over to the other side. I was very concerned that excavator would come over the wall,” McCusker told the court.

“It could have killed someone.”

On the other side of the boundary wall, Valibhoy’s son Arif was sparring with city planning staff about the discrepancies between what he had been told and what he was watching unfold from his parent’s home.

“Please advise on an urgent basis if council is seriously going to sit by and allow this to continue?,” Arif asked the city staff.

Tonya told the court Paul was apologetic and attempted to quell her concerns, but — like Arif — what he was saying did not align with what she could see from the window of her home office.

An amicable meeting or an ‘ambush’?

As the semi-trailers continued to dump fill at the site and cracks began forming in her boundary wall, Tonya and Paul arranged an in-person chat before they adjourned to meet on February 5.

Flanked by her husband Malcolm, Arif and the Bakers, Paul and Meredith told the court the meeting felt like an “ambush”, a claim Tonya later branded “emotional hyperbole”.

But with friendly discussions having yielded only apologies and not action, Tonya escalated the matter with the city — sending an email on behalf of Valibhoy, the Bakers and the Stokes’ 48 hours later demanding councillors take action.

Days after Mangano notified the city of his intention to move a motion calling for the chief executive to investigate, the works had caused damage to the footpath and ruptured a sewage line — sending raw sewage flowing into the McCuskers’ backyard.

Despite Cr Mangano’s desire to raise the matter at the council meeting and their belief the saga warranted an apology, the McCuskers were intent on dealing with the matter privately.

When quizzed about their decision not to pursue the matter at council, McCusker told the court they were “very averse” to publicity — particularly over an issue she said seemed “so trivial” when compared with “everything else happening in the world”.

On February 21, 2022, Paul wrote to city staff confirming the verge and footpath rectification works had been completed and that the furore among the neighbours appeared to have died down.

Twenty-four hours later, the majority of councillors backed Mangano’s motion to issue a stop work order, investigate residents’ complaints and recruit a land surveyor to assess the site.

But the works had also come to the attention of the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions, which had urged the city to launch a probe into works it claimed were unauthorised and ordered that they cease after soil was discharged into the Swan River.

The agency penned an email the following month ordering Paul to take immediate action.

At the time, the response indicates Paul took responsibility for removing a palm tree without approval, and maintained it was a mistake.

But on the stand Paul repeatedly said the department told him they would not prosecute, rejecting the proposition he and his wife had engaged in unlawful conduct and maintaining Mangano’s accusations of illegality were unjustified.

A photograph of the damaged footpath tendered as evidence in the defamation case.

Meanwhile, Mangano continued to pursue the matter, with the earthworks discussed at meetings in March and October that year — where he accused the McGarrys of placing fill on the verge “illegally”, creating a “trip hazard” and implored the city to remove the unauthorised fill.

While on the stand, Meredith became emotional recalling seeing the remarks in the newspaper and knowing they had been viewed by friends and family.

She also spoke to the breadth of the circulation, claiming she was quizzed about the dispute by a private ski instructor during a trip to Japan.

“I have never done anything illegal – it was pretty upsetting,” Meredith told her lawyer Robert Anderson KC, grabbing a handful of tissues.

We have been dragged into this high-profile court case ... there are people out there with real grievances in society that do not have the assets to get into this prestigious court — and I think those grievances are more important

Tonya McCusker

“It made me embarrassed. I told [people] it was a storm in a teacup, but it wasn’t because it has followed me.”

She told the court the mere sight of the Dalkeith block gave her “a sinking feeling” akin to passing a hospital in which a loved one had died, and she mulled telling Porteous to put it back on the market.

Meredith defended her right to vent about the media coverage despite bringing the lawsuit herself, claiming she did not believe the matter would go to trial but felt she had no choice.

She and Paul told the court they had tried to resolve the matter amicably to no avail.

“I want my name to be cleared and Paul’s name cleared because we did not do anything illegal,” Meredith told the court.

Adamant she did not need financial compensation, Meredith said an apology from Mangano would suffice.

But Mangano’s counsel, Sue Chrysanthou SC, said that wasn’t the only condition of a peace deal, claiming every iteration of the proposed settlement hinged on Mangano admitting he was wrong, and the plaintiffs were right.

She suggested the McGarrys’ case that Mangano had targeted the pair and held ‘ill-will’ had no basis in fact, and that he was merely doing his job as an elected official by acting on the concerns of ratepayers.

After five days of witness testimony and dissecting photographs of the verge from various angles, the trial drew to a close with a poignant remark from Tonya as her husband — a barrister with more than four decades experience — watched on from the gallery.

“We have been dragged into this high-profile court case ... there are people out there with real grievances in society that do not have the assets to get into this prestigious court — and I think those grievances are more important,” Tonya told the court.

The costly road to retribution

As Master Craig Sanderson found in a similar neighbourhood dispute unfolding just 600 metres away [Priolo v Nguyen], suburban rows that may otherwise remain localised often spill over into the courts when the parties reside in the western suburbs.

“Perhaps that is because the individuals concerned are well-resourced,” Sanderson wrote in a judgment penned in 2022.

A glance at the going rate of the counsel involved provides an insight into just how costly a trial of this kind can be.

The city rejected requests by Mangano for legal support in the matter, meaning he had to foot the bill for his defence alone.

His barrister Sue Chrysanthou is understood to charge $800 an hour and bill clients about $8000 for each full day in court, suggesting Mangano’s legal bill for the five-day trial alone would be in the order of $40,000.

Barrister Sue Chrysanthou leaves the Federal Court after a defamation case in September 2024.Credit: Eddie Jim.

The figure does not consider the fact the highly sought after defamation lawyer had to travel from her home in New South Wales to front the court.

And the costs being charged across the bar table would be similar.

Then, there is the burden on the taxpayer-funded judicial system of a case that has been darting in and out of court for more than two years and presided over by three separate judges.

The Department of Justice estimated the daily cost of the Supreme Court trial to be $11,800 — a figure which includes operating costs and the salaries of staff.

The figure takes the total cost of the five-day trial alone to almost $60,000, with just one quarter of that cost typically covered by the parties’ daily fee to have the matter heard.

The court has previously pointed out just two per cent of contested civil matters actually go to trial, and resources expended on the trial would simply be redirected to other matters.

But that’s not the only cost.

Taking such an action to repair one’s reputation can often backfire, as Paul learned after being sprung for passing the councillor’s home in an unregistered vehicle during a tit-for-tat over the definition of “unlawful”.

The matter is due to return to court for a directions hearing on April 2 before the trial recommences on April 8.

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