Amber Harrison rejects Seven pay-off

Amber Harrison has stunned Kerry Stokes’s Seven West Media empire by pulling out of a $50,000 settlement.

Amber Harrison has pulled out of a $50,000 settlement with Seven West.

Tim Worner’s former mistress Amber Harrison has stunned Kerry Stokes’s Seven West Media empire again, yesterday pulling out of a $50,000 settlement Seven thought it had agreed upon, and then indicating she would fold her legal action against the firm.

The shock decision could ­expose Ms Harrison — who was an executive assistant at Seven until she left in 2014 after her relationship with the chief executive became known — to Seven’s legal costs for the Supreme Court case, which will be heard on Monday.

“I’m fully expecting I’ll be pursued for costs,” Ms Harrison told The Australian.

“I decided that being pursued for a million dollars of costs was better than putting my name to an apology I don’t believe in.”

The Australian reported yesterday that it was believed the Stokes-chaired Seven West board was presented with a final version of a settlement last week that would have given a $50,000 payment to Ms Harrison’s lawyers Patron Legal.

In return, Ms Harrison would apologise, not to Seven but to the four women named in her Australian Human Rights Commission complaint made when she was represented by Michael Harmer.

A settlement had been expected as early as yesterday and would have headed off the ­Supreme Court trial between Seven West Media and Ms ­Harrison.

Ms Harrison yesterday stood down her lawyers at Patron Legal and barrister Julian Burnside.

She has told the Supreme Court she will accept its orders on Monday, including the sweeping gag order the media company ­imposed on her, but neither she nor any lawyer representing her would attend.

“You can’t help but lose to a company — even if you’ve got the best barrister in the country,” Ms Harrison said.

Seven would not comment on whether it would pursue its former employee for costs but confirmed its lawyers would be at the Supreme Court to present to judge John Sackar on Monday.

“We’re ready to go,” a Seven representative said.

The still-unresolved legal situation dates back three years to when Ms Harrison and Seven’s lawyers first negotiated her exit package. It escalated seven months ago after she went public with her story.

Since December, the corporate drama has embarrassed the media company, led to the departure of former Seven board director Sheila McGregor and kept an army of lawyers busy.

Mr Worner has made only one public outing as chief executive since December when in May he joined fellow media executives in Canberra to support the Turnbull government’s media reform package.

Mr Worner resigned in April from the board of the Sydney Swans, where he had come under pressure from prominent female club members.