Ex-lover threatened Seven boss with ‘reign of terror’

The ex-lover of Seven boss Tim Worner secreted away damaging material to unleash a “reign of terror”, a court’s heard.

Seven Network chief executive Tim Worner. Picture: John Feder

The former lover of Seven West Media boss Tim Worner secreted away damaging material about the company to unleash a “reign of terror” to “destroy” the media chief a court has heard.

The explosive allegations were made in the NSW Supreme Court of NSW yesterday where lawyers for Seven West Media and former Seven executive assistant Amber Harrison faced off over moves by Seven to permanently gag her from publishing embarrassing details of her affair with Mr Worner and from releasing confidential commercial material about Seven’s dealings.

Seven West Media lawyers tried to rip Ms Harrison’s reputation to shreds by tendering email excerpts that showed her bragging about her alleged intent to ­destroy Mr Worner after their two-year affair ended.

Andrew Bell SC read from an email Ms Harrison sent to Mr Worner’s executive assistant on May 29, 2014, that said she was going to finish “destroying your idiot boss”.

“I want (him) to know that he’s got it, that he knows I am out to get him. This is now war,” she wrote.

Another email sent a month later said she was going to “unleash a reign of terror” on Mr Worner.

And another sent on July 25 said she was going to “blow the roof off” Seven after claiming she possessed 1000 text messages from senior executives.

Mr Bell said the emails as well as allegations Ms Harrison took screenshots of confidential emails sent between senior Seven executives showed Ms Harrison was assembling a case against Mr Worner “for her own disgraceful purposes with some malice”.

Mr Bell read the email ­excerpts in an attempt to convince the court of Ms Harrison’s alleged intent to breach confidentiality agreements she signed in 2014 to receive a $350,000 termination deed from the company, which was paid in part to keep her silent about the affair. But Ms Harrison’s counsel, Melbourne barrister James Catlin, told the court his client was far from a “venomous harridan setting up poor Mr Worner” and that her breach of that deed came only about after Seven first breached the deal by ceasing payments to her in March 2015.

Mr Catlin said Ms Harrison was still owed $242,500 from Seven. He said Ms Harrison, who Seven had “vilified as a thief”, went public with details of the sordid affair only after payments to her stopped.

Mr Catlin said the injunction — which prohibits Ms Harrison from talking about the affair or doing media interviews and stops her from making disparaging comments about Seven — was put in place only to protect Mr Worner and Seven from further embarrassment.

“In fact what has happened is she has respected the confidentiality while not being paid the price,” he said. “This is a defamation injunction parading as a confidentiality injunction.’’

But Justice Robert McDougall did not buy that argument, saying the case was about upholding a contract, not freedom of speech.

Mr Catlin handed over to the court a USB stick containing 900 documents from Ms Harrison that were relevant to the case. Mr Bell said those documents contained further evidence the former executive assistant had kept information she was obliged to give up.

But Mr Catlin said most of the documents in that cache pertained to personal texts simply sent “between a woman and her lover”.

Justice McDougall extended the temporary order until a final hearing on March 3.