Peter V’landys loses ABC defamation case

The Federal Court has ruled he was not defamed by a 7.30 special that investigated the slaughter of retired racehorses.

NSW Racing boss Peter V’landys. Picture: Getty Images

NSW racing boss Peter V’landys has been ordered to pay the ABC’s legal costs after the Federal Court found he was not defamed by a 7.30 special that investigated the slaughter of retired racehorses.

Mr V’landys, 59, launched defamation proceedings against the ABC in February last year over a 2019 exposé by journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna, which aired disturbing details about the slaughter of retired racehorses just two days before The Everest at Randwick, the pinnacle of Sydney’s spring racing carnival.

In court documents, Mr V’landys’ lawyers said the 7.30 segment, The Final Race, implied that he had “callously permitted the wholesale slaughter of thoroughbred horses”, was indifferent to their suffering, and had ignored the “cruelty to which thoroughbred horses were subjected to in a Queensland abattoir.”

The 48-minute segment, which was the product of a two-year investigation, aired graphic footage of retired racehorses being kicked, dragged, shocked and inhumanely slaughtered at Queensland abattoir Meramist.

In his judgment on Friday, Federal Court Justice Michael Wigney found the four defamatory imputations claimed by Mr V’landys were not conveyed. He ordered the racing chief to pay the ABC’s legal costs.

“I was not persuaded that the report conveyed any of the imputations alleged by Mr V’landys,” Justice Wigney said.

ABC journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna.

Instead, he found the report had conveyed that the slaughter of racehorses was occurring “not because Racing NSW and the other horseracing regulators knowingly permitted it to occur”, but because the rules that had supposedly been put in place to stop it from occurring “were inadequate and ineffective.”

“That allowed unscrupulous elements of the industry, and unscrupulous operators of some abattoirs and knackeries, to exploit the system,” he said.

“The result was that the regulators, including Mr V’landys, did not know that the slaughter of thoroughbreds was occurring; that they were, to put it in colloquial terms, asleep at the wheel.”

Mr V’landys claimed the segment jeopardised his position as the chairman of rugby league’s governing body and had caused his reputation to be brought into public disrepute, ridicule and contempt.

He also argued that he was “deliberately” deceived by the ABC during an interview with Meldrum-Hanna, as she failed to show him the confronting undercover footage which was later used in the program.

Appearing in the witness box last October, Mr V’landys said the ABC was motivated by a “political agenda” and had pandered to “activists” in an effort to portray him as the “face” of cruelty to racehorses.

He said the program was a “10-out-of-10 stitch up” and had made him feel “deceived”, “angry”, and “conned” because he was unaware the Meramist footage existed until after the segment aired.

The juxtaposition of that footage with Mr V’landys’ confident assertions about the effectiveness of Racing NSW’s rules “made him look rather foolish”, Justice Wigney said, but it did not convey that Mr V’landys “actually knew that racehorses were being slaughtered and that his denials were callous and dishonest”.

At trial, Bruce McClintock, SC, told the court the ABC had decided to keep his client in the dark about the footage at a “senior level”. The ABC had set out to “trash and destroy” Mr V’landys’ reputation, he said.

“The ABC ambushed my client when they came to broadcast. They intercut footage (of horses being killed) with the footage of my client and in doing so showed my client, contrary to the fact, to be a liar.”

While Justice Wigney said Mr V’landys would “no doubt” have been “upset and embarrassed” by the report, he found the racing chief had ultimately failed to establish that the report was defamatory.

At trial, Sandy Dawson, SC, for the ABC, told the court it was an “outrageous slur” against the national broadcaster to suggest Meldrum-Hanna had “set out” to “damage the racing industry.”

Justice Wigney said the evidence relied on by Mr V’landys did not support the allegation that the ABC and Meldrum-Hanna “acted dishonestly and deceitfully” in not informing Mr V’landys about the footage taken at the Queensland abattoir.

“Nor does the evidence support the contention that the report was actuated by an improper motive or malice on the part of the ABC or Ms Meldrum-Hanna,” he said.