Julian Morrow, former Chaser star and ABC presenter, reported to police following email ‘purge’

ABC’s Julian Morrow is accused of getting ‘rid of’ email accounts less than three weeks after court proceedings were filed by his former business partner.

Julian Morrow enters the Supreme Court of NSW in 2021. Picture: John Grainger

Former Chaser star and ABC presenter Julian Morrow has been reported to police and accused by his former business partner of getting “rid of” email accounts less than three weeks after Supreme Court proceedings were filed by the ­former business partner.

The extraordinary accusation, made by television producer Nick Murray, was vehemently denied in court last week by Mr Morrow’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou.

According to an affidavit filed to the Supreme Court of Appeal as part of an appeal in an ongoing court battle between the pair, a production assistant at Mr Morrow’s company Giant Dwarf sent the email to staff on November 27 2019, advising them to “save ­anything important” as email ­accounts were about to be ­deleted the following day.

“Just a heads up to save anything important that’s important on your emails, as we need to get rid of your Letdown/Giant Dwarf email ­addresses by tomorrow morning,” the email said.

Nick Murray leaves the NSW Supreme Court in April last year. Picture: Liam Mendes

The pair are back in court following a 10-day trial last year, which found Mr Murray defamed Mr Morrow, who was awarded $35,000 in damages after Mr Murray sent defamatory emails to the ABC during the dispute.

Mr Morrow was found to have ­engaged in misleading and ­deceptive conduct in negotiations over ABC consumer affairs program The Checkout by failing to disclose a commercial opportunity to Mr Murray.

Mr Morrow’s company, The Checkout Pty Ltd, was ordered to pay over $450,000 to Mr Murray’s company, Cordell Jigsaw Productions Pty Ltd, also known as CJZ.

On Tuesday last week, Ms Chrysanthou told the Supreme Court of Appeal it was common for email accounts to be purged following the end of ­production.

Email sent by Julian Morrow's production assistant asking staff to “save anything important” as email accounts would be deleted the following day.

“They’ve got multiple email ­accounts depending on the programs they’re making, and then when they move on, they don’t want to have all of those multiple email accounts,” Ms Chrysanthou said.

On March 23 this year, Mr Murray took the highly unusual step of writing directly to the justice of the original trial saying it appeared “we may have deliberately been denied access to an unknown number of documents which could have assisted our defence”.

“Of course there may be an innocent explanation for this, but none has been given,” he wrote.

Mr Murray also said that he had “spent many hours” with Kings Cross detectives.

In a statement to The Australian, NSW Police confirmed they were “conducting ­inquiries” into the matter.

Ms Chrysanthou used this email to further her calls for an ­injunction for injurious falsehood – which had been denied last year.

Morrow, top right, was once a popular cast member of the The Chaser.

“(Justice Stevenson’s associate) informed us … that his Honour had received, direct to his Honour’s email address, an email from Mr Murray, not copied to anyone, ­accusing various people, particularly my client, of criminal offences,” Ms Chrysanthou said.

According to an affidavit seen by The Australian, upon discovering the 2019 email, Mr Murray sent an email to Mr Morrow and his lawyers on March 9 this year asking whether the email was genuine – to which he did not ­receive a response.

Four days later, he sent another email with these “follow-up questions”:

• Did Julian Morrow authorise (the sender) to send the email?

• How many Giant Dwarf email accounts were “got rid of”?

• What other document deletion activities were carried out after the proceedings were filed?

• Were Giant Dwarf’s legal representatives aware that Giant Dwarf intended to “get rid of” its email accounts?

• Will Mr Kay (Mr Morrow’s lawyer) undertake to inform the court about his client’s apparent email purge activities?

Mr Murray also wrote he was “already aware of at least one ­document which would have ­assisted CJZ’s defence of the ­Supreme Court proceedings, which appears to have been ‘lost’ when the ­accounts were got rid of”.

“It makes me wonder, what else was lost in the process? This is especially pertinent, given that at the time we had absolutely no documents relating to the dispute,” Mr Murray wrote.

“Of course, there may be a completely innocent explanation for the email account purge, notwithstanding the timing of it just before discovery in the Supreme Court action. If so, I would be interested to hear it.”

Mr Morrow and Mr Murray were contacted for comment.