Login
Influencer awarded $300k in defamation trial
A District Court judge has awarded $300,000 to a Sydney food reviewer and influencer in a defamation case after he was wrongly labelled a “paedophile” and a “racist” by a rival influencer.
Lauren Croft
Competitive eater, food reviewer and influencer Issac “Sir Eats-a-lot” Martin, represented by HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, has won out against Fouad “Abrakebabra” Najem — also known as Fred — in the NSW District Court, after a number of defamatory videos were made calling Mr Martin a “paedophile” and “racist”.
In her judgment, Judge Judith Gibson found that the defendant, Mr Najem, be “permanently restrained from publishing, or causing to be published,” any content stating that Mr Martin is a paedophile, racist, or “the most hated person in the social media marketing industry”.
The statement of claim relating to the judgment referred to two videos Mr Najem had made, wherein he made derogatory remarks about Mr Martin and accused him of making “obvious insults” about halal food on social media.
Those videos were only part of a series of “sensational, abusive and profane publications”, which the defendant continued to make from the time of the original publication up until a few days before the judgment hearing — a time span of almost seven months.
As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Najem launched a fundraiser to gain money for his lawyers’ fees — and stated that he created the videos after Mr Martin “compared halal meat to bacon”.
“The reason for this is that I was defending my Muslim brothers and sisters against derogatory comments made by him,” Mr Najem stated on the fundraising page.
“He compared halal meat to bacon and rudely attempted to educate the Islamic public on such. I spoke out against these obvious insults as he has worked with members of the Muslim community and clearly knows that pork is not halal.”
Whilst Mr Najem had originally engaged Millennium Lawyers to represent him in the claim, Her Honour received a letter the night before the hearing, stating that the law firm no longer represented the defendant — who also “was called three times outside the court at 10:15am and did not appear”, according to the judgment.
“The practical result of his non-attendance is that there is no challenge to the plaintiff’s submissions as to the capacity and defamatory meaning of the imputations, the adequacy or evidence of serious harm or damage to reputation, or to the plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction,” Judge Gibson said in her judgment.
Mr Martin, widely known by his social media handle @Issac_eatsalot, has over 50,000 followers on TikTok and over 210,000 on Instagram and was “appalled and offended” when he found videos on two separate Instagram accounts of Mr Najem, who goes by @abrakebabra_reviews and has over 25,000 followers on Instagram and over 195,000 followers on TikTok.
“The plaintiff initially hoped that this was a ‘one-off’ rant and that there would be nothing further. However, the next day, while the plaintiff and his wife were having lunch with a friend, the plaintiff became aware that the defendant had published a second video about him on his second Instagram account. The defendant repeated the imputations that the plaintiff was a paedophile by calling him a ‘pedo dog’ and by calling him a racist who attacks Muslims. The defendant said that the plaintiff was the most hated person in the industry,” Judge Gibson stated in her judgment.
“What was particularly upsetting for the plaintiff was that, at the end of this second video, the defendant had posted a photoshopped picture of the plaintiff at Bondi Beach with the word ‘RACIST’ superimposed over him. That photograph had been taken and used to promote the plaintiff’s work with this year’s NRL Indigenous All Stars game, a particularly successful venture of the plaintiff’s and one which had enjoyed widespread publicity.”
The defendant also attacked Mr Martin’s wife’s appearance and published a “series of abusive messages”, including “derogatory and highly offensive” content attacking both the food reviewer and his wife.
This was followed by a direct message from the defendant, where he said he was “going to end [Mr Martin]” and that he was a “racist dog”.
Judge Gibson ruled that each of the matters individually, as well as combined, warranted “serious harm”.
“Hurt to the plaintiff’s feelings is of particular importance in this claim. The plaintiff has suffered not only hurt and anxiety, but also from feelings of outrage, humiliation and helplessness at being unable to stop these attacks,” Her Honour stated in her judgment.
“All of these factors call for a substantial award for each of the publications.”
This is the first time that damages have been assessed under the amendments to the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW), which came into effect in July last year.
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
