ABC accused of ‘covering up’ star Myf Warhurst’s leading role in fiery neighbourhood fence dispute
A feud over Myf Warhurst’s fence erupted amid explosive allegations the ABC ran a ‘one-sided’ journalistic ‘hit job’ on her neighbour – without revealing the starring role their longstanding presenter played. WATCH the videos from both sides.
A trivial suburban dispute over ABC personality Myf Warhurst’s fence line has escalated into allegations the public broadcaster launched a “one-sided” journalistic “hit job” on her neighbour.
The ABC has now been accused of breaching its editorial guidelines and wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars after publishing a withering take-down of mother of three Karla Martinez on its website and social media last May while failing to even disclose its star presenter – best known for her recurring role on the ABC’s music/comedy quiz show Spicks and Specks – was a central player in the vicious neighbourhood feud.
The furore first began when Warhurst’s then partner, architect Brian Steendyk, started tearing down a 26m stretch of the disputed dividing fence they shared with neighbour Ms Martinez with “a chainsaw and grinder” at their North Warrandyte home, on Melbourne’s northeastern fringe in late December 2022.
A heated row broke out before rapidly devolving into an aggressive stand-off, rival triple-0 calls and allegations that Warhurst’s boyfriend had been hit on the head with a length of agriculture pipe allegedly wielded by Ms Martinez, a claim she denied.
The explosive encounter was captured on mobile phone vision and police body-worn camera footage – obtained by The Australian – as officers from nearby Eltham police station worked to diffuse the volatile situation.
Ms Martinez was initially charged with assaulting Mr Steendyk after he made a formal complaint to police, but was ultimately dismissed by the police prosecutor on the day it was due to be heard in court. The dust-up led to years of tit-for-tat legal salvos between the two sides, amid a flurry of competing “interim intervention orders” and complaints to the local Nillumbik Shire Council after Ms Martinez started constructing a permanent concrete wall along the contentious boundary line.
The fracas eventually spilled into the public domain after the ABC published an article on its news website and social media about the heated dispute on May 5 last year as Ms Martinez was preparing to face court for the yet-to-be-dismissed assault charge.
Ms Martinez has now accused the ABC of flagrant bias after picturing and repeatedly identifying her – both under her full legal and professional names, and position as a senior architect at a leading Melbourne firm – throughout the article, while completely suppressing the identities of Warhurst and her then boyfriend.
The only disclosure in the article that it in any way related to Warhurst’s running dispute with Ms Martinez was a brief mention that an unnamed “neighbour” she had allegedly assaulted “lives with an ABC contractor”.
Ms Martinez said her livelihood and career had been left in tatters in the wake of the story and she had sent an email to ABC chairman Kim Williams further accusing the broadcaster of deliberately “humiliating and defaming me through malicious content which Myf (allegedly) orchestrated”, and demanding “Myf be stood down from participating in any programs connected with the ABC” pending a full investigation.
“I respectfully request … Myf Warhurst is temporarily stood down without pay,” Ms Martinez said in her email to Mr Williams in November.
“All the photos published (with the article) were (allegedly) taken by Myf Warhurst and misconstrued for use in the ABC article.”
Warhurst has vehemently refuted any suggestion she played any role in the conception or production of the ABC story, or that she provided any photographs, insisting she had never wanted details of the dispute to be made public.
“Myf Warhurst was unaware of the May 2024 article’s existence until a friend brought it to her attention after it was published,” her agent said in a statement.
“She had no involvement in its publication and has wished at all times for this matter to remain private.
“We cannot comment on Mr Steendyk’s behalf.”
It is understood Warhurst and Mr Steendyk, who lives and works in Queensland, have broken up since the incident unfolded at her home on Melbourne’s outskirts.
In correspondence sighted by The Australian, Mr Williams declined Ms Martinez’s request to meet and discuss the matter “without prejudice” before the ABC’s senior lawyer, Corey Jankie, advised her that her “assumptions and assertions … are inaccurate”.
“On this basis, the ABC does not agree to comply with your request,” Mr Jankie told her. “In any event, we note (without admission) the article in question has been removed from websites controlled by the ABC.”
The ABC also declined to respond to a series of questions from The Australian regarding the story, its provenance and the reasons it was eventually taken down from its websites.
Either way, Ms Martinez said removing the story did little to undo the significant damage it had already caused to both her personal and professional lives in the wake of its publication.
“That article destroyed my job, life, career and harmed my family while protecting the source of the story,” she said.
“It was essentially about a civil dispute which escalated to numerous criminal charges against me – which have all been struck out by the courts.
“The ABC doesn’t even name Myf or her partner in the story – why not? Because they’re trying to protect their own.
“My lawyers have repeatedly asked the ABC to reveal the source of the story but they are refusing to say. They’re trying to cover it up.”
Warhurst had strenuously denied being part of any cover-up or plan to deceive the ABC’s audience.
The drawn-out dispute is a far cry from Ms Martinez’s first interactions with her famous neighbour after the television star moved in next door in early 2022.
“Everything started out friendly enough and I even went over and brought her a bottle of wine to welcome her to the neighbourhood,” Ms Martinez told The Australian.
“But all hell broke loose as soon as they found out we were going to start constructing a concrete wall along the property line. She hated it – the wall, design, everything.”
Ms Martinez claimed that was when Warhurst and her then partner decided to take matters into their own hands, and began ripping down the contested section of the fence late in the afternoon on December 28, 2022.
“Brian grabbed a chainsaw and a grinder and started demolishing the fence because he claimed it was on his property,” Ms Martinez said.
Although Ms Martinez conceded that the existing fence did veer on to the ABC presenter’s property “by about 30cm, or the length of a ruler”, she said she decided to try to claim adverse possession over the tiny parcel of land – measuring about 7.5 square metres – after they started destroying the fence without her consent.
The provision – also known as “squatters’ rights” – allows Victorian residents to claim legal ownership of land if they have continuously occupied it without the owner’s consent for at least 15 years.
“So I go out and started screaming and it all becomes very nasty, and I asked my kids to call triple-0 and get the police to come,” Ms Martinez said.
Ms Martinez’s young daughter placed the call at 5.36pm, telling emergency services “our neighbour is kind of ruining our property”, and that she could hear “shouting and screaming” being exchanged between two feuding parties outside.
Less than half an hour later, at 6.05pm, Warhurst also called triple-0, claiming “we’re trying to remove a fence that is on our property and we were assaulted by the neighbour”. She told the operator Mr Steendyk had been “hit on the head with a pipe” by Ms Martinez “as he was trying to cut down the fence”.
“Then her husband threatened him with a stick, and then he came to my house, and he said to Brian, ‘If you continue this, you’ll be sorry’ … in a very aggressive, threatening manner,” Warhurst said.
Ms Martinez’s husband, Cesar Funez, has denied any wrongdoing or issuing any threats.
After officers arrived at the scene, they separated the parties before Mr Steendyk made an official statement accusing Ms Martinez of assault.
The following day Ms Martinez retaliated by slapping Mr Steendyk with an “urgent interim intervention order” accusing him of “maliciously destroying our dividing fence and newly constructed foundations without our consent”.
Little more than a fortnight later Mr Steendyk took out his own interim intervention order against Ms Martinez, amid claims he feared for his life while living next door to her, and she was formally charged the following month with assaulting him.
“Things just escalated from there and I went and got an IVO against Myf,” Ms Martinez told The Australian.
Under the conditions of the “personal safety intervention order”, Warhurst was prohibited from “stalking her neighbour, or engaging in any conduct with the intention of causing physical or mental harm” to Ms Martinez. The order was later rescinded.
“They then (allegedly) started complaining to the council about the height of the wall I was building along the property line and say that I had not begun construction in the specified time frame,” Ms Martinez claimed.
Ms Martinez said she was hit with seven “criminal charges” over the construction of the wall, and was still fighting the charges – and accompanying $200,000 fine – in the courts when the ABC published its article about her last May.
She said all those charges had since been dropped.
Titled “Prize-winning Melbourne architect charged with illegal building work”, the story also revealed Ms Martinez was facing an impending charge in the Ringwood Magistrates Court the following month after “allegedly assaulting a neighbour with a plastic pipe”.
Although the story included extensive quotes of the alleged assault from Mr Steendyk’s account filed in court documents, it attributed them to an unnamed “neighbour”.
“The neighbour was removing a disputed fence with a grinder when Ms Martinez allegedly confronted him,” the story read before quoting Mr Steendyk’s witness statement.
“Without warning I felt a sharp whack to my face, head and back. The force of this whack threw my glasses from my head, and tore skin from the bridge of my nose,” the statement said.
“Stunned, I stepped back from the fence and looked up to see Karla Martinez with a long agricultural drainage pipe in her hand standing over where I had just been couched down and yelling obscenities to me.”
Rather than the ABC updating the article or filing a fresh report clarifying that she had been cleared of any wrongdoing, Ms Martinez said the story mysteriously vanished after she raised her concerns with Mr Williams – although other reports based on the ABC copy remained online.
Although her dispute started with Warhurst, Ms Martinez said she held the ABC wholly accountable for the way it mishandled the situation.
“This was an unethical abuse of the ABC’s power from start to finish – and they’ve taken absolutely zero responsibility for what they have recklessly done to me or my family,” she said.
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