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Geoffrey Rush wins record $1.2m in damages for defamation case

The Oscar-winning actor successfully sued Nationwide News, which publishes Australia’s Daily Telegraph, and journalist Jonathon Moran over its reporting of an alleged sexual misconduct case

Roisin O'Connor
Friday 24 May 2019 08:12 BST
Geoffrey Rush pictured outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales in April 2019
Geoffrey Rush pictured outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales in April 2019 (Getty)

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Geoffrey Rush will receive the largest ever payout for damages made to a single person in Australian history, following his defamation case against a newspaper publisher.

Judge Michael Wigney awarded Rush 2.9m Australian dollars (£1.5m) on 23 May after taking his loss of earnings into consideration, which raised the total from the original sum of 484,000 Australian dollars (£263,000). Mr Rush was originally seeking more than $25m in damages.

The Oscar-winning actor successfully sued Nationwide News, which publishes Australia’s Daily Telegraph, and journalist Jonathon Moran over its reporting of alleged sexual misconduct against actor Eryn Jean Norvill.

Norvill appeared with Mr Rush in a production of Shakespeare's King Lear in 2015 and 2016, where she alleged that he had touched her inappropriately on several occasions and also made lewd comments. Judge Wigney found that Ms Norvill was “prone to exaggeration”.

The BBC reports that Mr Rush's barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, said the Telegraph had shown a “complete lack of impartiality and lack of commercial sense”.

Judge Wigney called the reporting of the allegations, in an article headlined “King Leer”, a recklessly irresponsible piece of sensationalist journalism of... the very worst kind”, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

He found two reports and a poster by the company to be defamatory towards Rush, who has sought an injunction to prevent the newspaper from re-publishing accusations from the case.

Nationwide News has appealed against an initial ruling in the case.

Tom Blackburn, barrister for the newspaper, said Mr Rush was “trying to shut down any criticism of the judgment” and that the injunction on re-publishing allegations could have a detrimental effect on coverage of the #MeToo movement.

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