Joe Aston ‘making matters worse’ with sharp lines in witness box

The AFR columnist’s colourful defence won him fame earlier this week but could prove costly if the court finds against him.

Journalist Joe Aston leaving Federal court with his lawyer in the defamation trial against Elaine Stead. Picture: Jane Dempster

Venture capitalist Elaine Stead is seeking aggravated damages against Australian Financial ­Review columnist Joe Aston ­partly due to the “escalation” of his claims against her when in the witness box this week.

Aston’s colourful defence of opinions he expressed — in two lacerating columns and a tweet that Dr Stead says damaged her mental health and her career — brought the Federal Court defamation case to national attention.

Dr Stead, a former executive director with the now collapsed ASX-listed fund manager Blue Sky, alleges Aston defamed her in two Rear Window columns published in February and October last year, as well as on social media.

Aston had argued Dr Stead acted like a “pyromaniac” with other people’s money and parried with her barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC about the “banality” of the executive’s social media posts as the firm hit the skids.

But Aston’s time in the witness box — in which he ­labelled Dr Stead a “feminist cretin” was ­debated, and he said he still held the opinion that she was stupid — was likely to aggravate the hurt to the former Blue Sky executive, Ms Chrysanthou said.

She said the LA-based columnist making fresh accusations while under cross examination was something Dr Stead’s case ­relied on as a matter of “significant” aggravation.

The barrister declined to ­specify an amount for a damages claim but said that without a finding of aggravation Dr Stead was seeking damages “right at the top of the range” and with aggravation the sum would be “well above that”.

Ms Chrysanthou said the columnist had escalated his claims “repeatedly” and was in many instances unresponsive to questions put to him.

She also raised the sending of a letter initially dismissing the venture capitalist’s concerns as part of the aggravating conduct as she told the court the columnist had never believed some of what he had written was true.

Ms Chrysanthou said this was “extremely serious” conduct which should give rise to “substantial aggravation” and criticised the publisher for standing by the letter even though the defence of truth had been abandoned.

Dr Stead’s barrister also referred to Aston’s evidence, arguing he was waging a campaign against her and that he had “readily accepted” under cross examination that he targeted people.

But judge Michael Lee said the columnist was careful to say he would only “target” people showing particular characteristics, including cant, self-importance or some sort of malfeasance, and noted the truthful approach taken in court by both Dr Stead and the AFR columnist.

Ms Chrysanthou told the court, however, that Aston had gone after Dr Stead at a time when nothing was happening at Blue Sky’s business.

“He found an excuse to criticise her when really there was ­absolutely nothing happening, and we say that that was part of his modus operandi, where he ­destroys a person on the back page of the AFR,” she said.

Ms Chrysanthou said Aston’s method was to target a person — “he destroys them” — and their reputation then suffers a “slow death”, which she said was “improper conduct” on the part of a journalist in a newspaper such as the AFR.

But Justice Lee noted there was a public interest in newspapers exposing cant and hypocrisy.

Ms Chrysanthou questioned the timing of the columnist’s ­pieces on Dr Stead as they came in wake of critical but justifiable coverage in 2018 when Blue Sky was more active.

She told the court that Aston was publishing the articles “just to be mean; just to humiliate was the only purpose they had”.