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John Ibrahim’s son fails to appeal failed defamation case
Daniel Taylor, son of former Kings Cross nightclub owner John Ibrahim, failed to appeal his unsuccessful defamation case against a Sydney newspaper over an article he alleged made him out to be a mobster.
Naomi Neilson
Mr Taylor alleged a 24-page spread printed in The Sunday Telegraph in June 2019 portrayed him as a mobster, member of the Mafia and a criminal involved in organised crime, but Federal Court’s Justice Anna Katzmann found it instead painted him as a “petulant young man”.
A full court comprising Justices Andrew Wigney, David O’Callaghan and Darren Jackson dismissed Mr Taylor’s appeal.
“We are of the view that there is no merit in the first ground of appeal; that the second ground does not arise; and that the appeal is, therefore, to be dismissed,” the court ordered on Tuesday (25 July).
Addressing Mr Taylor’s allegation Justice Katzmann did not read the whole of the report, the full court found there was “no merit”.
Specifically, Mr Taylor suggested Justice Katzmann “compartmentalised each of the constituent articles, focusing primarily on those which appeared to be ‘about’ the appellant and giving less attention to the others”.
“How else was Her Honour to have read the report as a whole, as an ordinary reasonable reader would, and assess the imputations alleged to be conveyed, otherwise than by ‘focusing’ on those parts of the articles that mentioned the appellant?” the court said.
In the article, titled “Inside the House of Ibrahim: Unauthorised”, journalist Brenden Hills gave an “uncensored account” of the Ibrahim family based on intercepted telephone conversations and other surveillance material obtained as part of a covert police operation.
Mr Taylor said Mr Hills used “mafia lore and the language of organised crime” to suggest his family was involved in nefarious activities.
This included a description of Michael Ibrahim, Mr Taylor’s uncle, as being “very well connected in the underworld” and a description of a violin case above a manuscript from the movie Scarface.
Mr Taylor suggested in the trial last year that the specific mention of the violin case was to “evoke the classic image of the Prohibition-era American mobster carrying a Tommy gun concealed in a violin case”.
He said references like this “could only have been made in order to liken the Ibrahim family to the American mob”.
While Justice Katzmann found there was “force” in these submissions, Mr Taylor’s case was about how he was depicted. She found the ordinary reader would have known that of all the family members listed in the article, “not all are key figures in the criminal network”.
Justice Katzmann said that while the article was “certainly unflattering” towards Mr Taylor, it did not create the impression he was a “mafia figure, mobster or criminal engaged in organised crime”.
“Rather, Mr Taylor comes across as Mr Hills described him, namely as a petulant young man with a sense of entitlement, who has a complicated and at times turbulent relationship with his father, a foul mouth, a fondness for wisecracks and a predilection for making jokes in poor taste,” Justice Katzmann found last year.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
