Karting Australia CEO Kelvin O’Reilly has won a defamation case against Peter Edgar, operator of the Federation of Australian Racing Karters Union (FARKU) Facebook page.
The court heard in December last year that Edgar published a series of posts on the social media platform, making a number of professional and personal allegations against O’Reilly.
Ten of these posts were brought before the court.
Justice Bradley, in the Supreme Court of Queensland, yesterday ordered Edgar to pay O’Reilly damages of $250,000, plus interest of $20,658.71, plus the plaintiff’s costs that had yet to be determined.
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Further, Edgar, who represented himself, has been ordered to remove the content within seven days.
“I find that Mr O’Reilly was caused serious harm by Mr Edgar’s on-going unlawful infringement of his right to protection of his otherwise outstanding reputation” the Judgment read.
“He (Edgar) maintained that the posts were justified and that the defamatory imputations were true, despite having no evidence capable of proving that to be the case.”
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