Ray Hadley emerges victorious in 20-month court battle with Eels
Ray Hadley in his studio in Pyrmont. Picture: Renee Nowytarger
Broadcaster Ray Hadley has emerged victorious in a protracted 20-month court battle with two disgraced former Parramatta Eels officials — former chairman Steve Sharp and ex-deputy chairman Tom Issa — after the 2GB host attacked them on air for “lies” and “mismanagement of the club”.
The defamation case, initiated after comments Hadley made on his top-rating 2GB morning show, has been abandoned by Mr Sharp and Mr Issa in the NSW Supreme Court.
Judge Lucy McCallum ordered Mr Sharp pay Hadley’s employer, Harbour Radio, $60,000 in costs. However, Mr Issa’s final costs are yet to be determined, with a hearing set down for later this year.
Harbour Radio’s legal team has made an application to Justice McCallum for “indemnity costs” from Mr Issa, which could amount to a six-figure sum if successful.
After the case was abandoned, Justice McCallum noted that it was “a day of capitulation”.
Mr Sharp and Mr Issa were among a board of seven Parramatta directors sacked by the NSW government last year. Both were last month issued with “show cause” notices by the NSW clubs regulator, the independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, proposing they be disqualified from the state’s club industry for an unspecified period.
Among some of Hadley’s remarks during the course of a number of 2GB broadcasts made about the Eels’ two most senior officials at the time were:
● The Parramatta board, led by Mr Sharp and Mr Issa, was “dysfunctional and basically hopeless”;
● Comments that “the lies and mismanagement of the club” under the pair’s watch meant the NRL should administer the club;
● A claim that it was “laughable” that the “absolute nincompoops” didn’t know about “abuse of the salary cap” at the club;
● Mr Issa was “leading poor stumbling, bumbling Steven Sharp through the nose”;
● Mr Sharp couldn’t direct “a choko vine over an outhouse”.
Before they were sacked by the NSW government, Mr Sharp and Mr Issa launched the club-funded action seeking aggravated damages from Hadley over the comments, claiming they had been grievously defamed.
Mr Sharp’s lawyers had argued that some of Hadley’s comments implied he had been “so incompetent and derelict in his duties that he should be removed from the board”.
Mr Issa’s team claimed, among other contentions, that Mr Hadley’s remarks implied he was “such a contemptible person he is not worth knowing”.
Hadley’s legal team pleaded truth to the majority of the claims made by Mr Sharp and Mr Issa, saying that the majority of the imputations were “true”, and others were “fair comment”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s/news-story/5a8b0afe885b58cc67c3549a57a87b3a
