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Judge ‘dumbfounded’ over Friendlyjordies videos criticising Barilaro’s lawyers
By Georgina Mitchell
A Federal Court judge has said he is “completely dumbfounded” that Google allowed videos to be uploaded to YouTube which attacked the lawyers of former deputy premier John Barilaro and accused them of misconduct, and is considering referring the matter for prosecution for contempt.
Mr Barilaro sued Google and political commentator Jordan Shanks last year over two videos published on the Friendlyjordies channel in 2020 titled bruz and Secret Dictatorship.
John Barilaro leaves the Federal Court with his lawyers on Thursday.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The case against Mr Shanks was settled in November last year, when he provided an apology to Mr Barilaro and edited the two videos. However, the case against Google continues.
Google initially offered a range of defences in the case, but has now conceded Mr Barilaro was defamed. The tech giant is liable as a publisher because they were asked to take the videos down and refused.
A trial, which began this week, explored how much Mr Barilaro will receive in damages.
On Thursday, Justice Steven Rares said he was “shocked” by other videos uploaded to the Friendlyjordies channel, including one in December 2021 which suggested Mr Barilaro’s lawyers may have submitted false statutory declarations.
Justice Rares said the videos appear to be a “calculated” attempt to intimidate Mr Barilaro and his lawyers to stop him from proceeding with the case, and though he will not make a ruling himself on whether this constitutes contempt, he will give “serious consideration” to referring Google and Mr Shanks to the court’s registrar for a contempt prosecution.
Jordan Shanks, the face of the Friendlyjordies channel, pictured in October 2021. Credit: Kate Geraghty
“It’s plainly contempt to attack a party’s lawyers with a view to intimidating them,” Justice Rares said. “It’s a matter of great concern to me that Google has allowed that to be published.”
In the December video, which was played in court, Mr Shanks suggested Mr Barilaro’s lawyers potentially misled Google by submitting false statutory declarations through either “purposeful and blatant dishonesty” or “gross lack of due diligence”.
Mr Shanks claimed in the video that if the lawyers wanted to maintain “even a shred of credibility” they should withdraw the defamation case and “offer everyone they misled apologies”.
Justice Rares said he previously jailed a man in a similar case of “serious contempt”, where the man made comments on Twitter that criticised the other party’s lawyers in an ongoing court case.
Jordan Shanks pictured in a still from the “bruz” video.Credit: YouTube / Friendlyjordies
Another video uploaded by Mr Shanks, which Google was alerted to and didn’t remove, called Mr Barilaro’s solicitor a “dumb f---” and suggested he had engaged in a breach of the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules by writing “confidential and not for publication” on a document.
Justice Rares said it’s “extraordinary that Google is behaving in this way, I’m just completely dumbfounded”.
“I’m quite shocked by the behaviour,” he said. “[Google] know the law of contempt – or they should.”
Mr Barilaro’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC, previously said one of the “absurd” videos made “indefensibly defamatory attacks” on Mr Barilaro’s legal team, and lawyers advising Google would have known the claims contained within it were false.
In closing submissions, Ms Chrysanthou said her client is entitled to a large “headline figure” of damages in the case, to vindicate his reputation and compensate him for the “huge amounts of hatred” incited towards him and anyone associated with him.
She said Google had acknowledged for the first time this week “how despicable these videos are” through questions asked by its barrister in court.
Ms Chrysanthou said Google’s conduct in the case, including dropping all of its defences so close to the trial and implying during questioning that Mr Barilaro lied to ICAC, meant her client was entitled to aggravated damages above and beyond the statutory cap of $432,500.
She outlined the damages paid in other cases, including one where a surgeon was paid $530,000 for a false Google review.
“This is a very, very extreme – if not one of the most extreme – cases of damage to reputation, having regard to the comments Your Honour has in evidence and the attacks made on my client and the messages he received,” Ms Chrysanthou said.
“His reputation has been ruined, and we seek compensation for that.”
Google’s barrister James Hmelnitsky, SC, said it should not be forgotten that the harm caused to Mr Barilaro began months before December 2020, the date his client became a publisher of the videos by refusing to take them down.
“[Mr Barilaro] is aggrieved, and rightly so, by the conduct of Mr Shanks,” Mr Hmelnitsky said.
He said an injunction should not be made against his client because there is no suggestion Google would defame Mr Barilaro in the future.
Justice Rares will deliver his judgment in the case at a later date.
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