730 expose: ABC executives ‘had agenda against Peter V’landys’

A 7.30 expose was designed to portray Peter V’landys as a person who ‘callously permitted the slaughter’ of horses, court hears.

Peter V'landys pictured (left) leaving the Federal Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Senior figures at the ABC allegedly fuelled a “firestorm” of vitriol against NSW Racing boss Peter V’landys by agreeing to broadcast a 7.30 exposé that revealed acts of cruelty against former racehorses, a court has heard.

The chief executive of Racing NSW and Australian Rugby League Commission chairman is suing the ABC and journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna over the segment ‘The Final Race’ which aired on 7.30 last year.

“I feel deceived, I feel conned, I feel angry,” Mr V’landys told the court on Wednesday, after watching the segment for the first time in the witness box. “It’s a 10 out of 10 stitch up, a hit job.”

The sporting tsar is seeking aggravated damages over the segment, which exposed cruelty against racehorses and aired graphic footage from Meramist Abattoir in Queensland.

Mr V’landys said the ABC did not give him a chance to explain that Racing NSW has no jurisdiction over Queensland, where most of the racehorses in the program were from.

“The Queensland abattoir disturbs me ... That’s why I put all the measures in place in NSW to make sure that doesn’t happen. You can’t be a regulator without having a solid reputation.”

The undercover vision, obtained during a two-year investigation, showed graphic footage of horses being kicked, dragged, shocked, bolted through the head and inhumanely slaughtered at the abattoir.

Barrister Bruce McClintock SC, for Mr V’landys, said the ABC acted with malice “at a senior level” when it spliced the racing chief’s 7.30 interview with footage of horses being slaughtered at the Queensland abattoir.

The ABC denies the program conveyed the claimed defamatory meanings, including that Mr V’landys was portrayed as someone who “callously permitted the wholesale slaughter” of horses.

Mr McClintock said the “abject failures of journalism” went beyond Ms Meldrum-Hanna’s report, and extended as far as the program’s executive producer Justin Stevens and the broadcaster’s head of investigative journalism, John Lyons. He claimed the ABC had made a deliberate decision to “keep my client in the dark” about the damning vision taken at Meramist Abattoir in Caboolture, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

“They had an agenda to make the racing industry and my client look bad,” he told the court. “It was an ambush, a stitch-up … by senior members of the news, editorial, and legal teams.”

“Who is the one face, the one representative of the racing industry this dishonest journalism shows?” It’s my client.”

The segment aired on October 17 last year, just two days before The Everest at Randwick, the highlight of Sydney’s spring racing carnival.

The court heard Mr V’landys had been subjected to death threats and was beset by a “firestorm of abuse” after the program aired, including from people who threatened to hurt his family members.

Mr V’landys told the court that Racing NSW put aside “sufficient funds to re-home every (retired) horse” in NSW, with the agency dedicating about $2.5m a year to the welfare of racehorses. He also revealed that vets employed by Racing NSW had already visited 1200 retired racehorses this year to conduct welfare checks.

“We have the highest integrity unit in the world,” he said. “We’ve worked extremely hard to introduce all these measures.”

Mr V’landys also suffered “demonstrable damage” to his reputation after the program, particularly when former News Corp Chairman John Hartigan questioned whether he should remain at the helm of racing NSW.

The hearing continues.