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Court throws out Sydney solicitor’s defamation appeal
A Sydney solicitor who admitted to deceiving a major retailer has lost a defamation fight with a small publication for the second time.
Naomi Neilson
The Federal Court threw out Simone Selkirk’s application to appeal a September 2023 finding that MyLocalPages and its owner, Martin Wyatt, did not defame her in an article viewed by only three people.
In one example provided to the court, the website turned “Simone Olivia will appeal after being found guilty” to “Simone Olivia will attraction soon after remaining uncovered responsible”.
Selkirk claimed it hurt her chances of employment because “offers went cold and a number of referees were not contacted”.
The primary judge, Justice David O’Callaghan, said the evidence was only “vague assertions” so could not establish serious harm.
In the original hearing, Selkirk also admitted to engaging in acts of deception on 17 separate occasions over two years by presenting false online purchase invoice emails to David Jones for refunds.
Although convicted, Selkirk successfully appealed because the prosecution was unable to prove where she obtained the goods.
In her evidence to the Federal Court, Selkirk admitted to deception.
In the grounds of appeal, Selkirk claimed Justice O’Callaghan erred in refusing her application to call three witnesses over video link because the application was made too “late”.
Although Selkirk insisted the evidence was “crucial” to proving the article was defamatory, the appeal bench – made up of Justices Anthony Besanko, Stewart Anderson and Patrick O’Sullivan – found it still “would not have taken her case very far”.
Selkirk also claimed Justice O’Callaghan erred in not determining the meaning of the article and whether it gave rise to the imputations.
Justice O’Callaghan said he would not decide these matters because the defamation application would be dismissed “in any event”.
Justices Besanko, Anderson and O’Sullivan said it was difficult to see how Justice O’Callaghan could have proceeded differently.
“It amounted to putting [Selkirk’s] case at its highest for the purpose of determining the issue of serious harm,” they determined.
Selkirk’s final ground was Justice O’Callaghan erred in relying on her acceptance that she had engaged in acts of deception.
In his original judgment, Justice O’Callaghan said he could not accept that even widespread publication of the article “telling the tale of her convictions and of her intention to appeal them could have caused her reputation to be made worse”.
The appeal bench said the difficulty with Justice O’Callaghan’s remarks was that although Selkirk admitted to deceptive conduct, there was “no evidence” this was known to a “sufficient number of persons to conclude that she had a general bad reputation”.
However, the failure of the first two grounds “considered together” justifies a finding that the appeal application should be dismissed.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
