Everyone should feel empowered by the fact that a small website like this with just over 2740 followers can take on a billionaire like Kerry Stokes and have him on the run. Those are the facts as Stokes’ legal team are using every delaying tactic they can to avoid a court hearing for the defamation case Stokes instituted against me. Why? Stokes was never going to allow it to go to hearing in the first place given his previous experience of being exposed for lying in the witness stand by Justice Sackville in the 2007 C7 judgement.
I have seen the fear in the eyes of Sandy Dawson (Mr Stokes’ barrister) in court when I have mentioned discovery and interrogatories which would allow me access to Stokes’ relevant documents and force him to answer questions.
Background
As regular readers know Stokes instituted defamation proceedings against me in April. He managed to get a Super-injunction (I was ordered not to tell anyone about the court case) which only lasted 2 days because it was that dodgy. Be that as it may, I breached the Super-injunction and wrote an article telling people he was suing me and also wrote an email of complaint to the NSW Attorney-General and Chief Justice Bathurst. For my trouble Stokes charged me with contempt of court and I was found guilty and fined $2000. Since then Stokes has been ducking and weaving and playing delaying tactics in the defamation matter.
I was in court again on Monday (17/11/14) and it was very clear that Stokes is running scared. This is because if it does go to hearing a jury is going to have no choice but to find that Mr Stokes is a perjurer and compulsive liar etc.
The good thing for this website and its supporters is that the court case shows that if you stand your ground that you can win. It does not matter what happens from here because we have won in the court of public opinion and Stokes never had a chance of winning there with his lies. The Supreme Court and Stokes are looking dumber by the day.
Stokes is in effect now refusing to prosecute the case and it should be dismissed for abuse of process
The matter is set down for a time wasting interlocutory hearing on the 2nd of February 2015. Stokes has filed a notice of motion and wants to have my defence dismissed but on his lawyer’s own admission even if they win I will just have to file another defence. There are precedents for this which I pointed out a few weeks ago in court.
So what is the point of Stokes’ notice of motion? To waste time as he is scared of the interrogatories and discovery orders that I have sought. What scares Stokes is that he does not want to get caught perjuring himself again as he did in Seven Network Limited v News Limited [2007] FCA 1062 (27 July 2007) where Justice Sackville said he gave evidence that was “knowingly false” (Click here to read at paragraphs: 385 – 398)
E.g at 391:
391 Even taking these matters into account, however, there were simply too many occasions on which Mr Stokes’ evidence was implausible for me to regard him as a reliable witness on disputed issues. Sometimes it is extremely difficult or impossible to reconcile his version of events with the contemporaneous records, the reliability of which there is no good reason to doubt. Sometimes Mr Stokes’ evidence flies in the face of incontrovertible facts. Sometimes, he changed his evidence when confronted with material that made it virtually impossible to maintain the position he had previously adopted. Sometimes Mr Stokes’ evidence conflicted with that of other witnesses (including, on occasions, witnesses called by Seven) whose accounts are, in my view, reliable.
And at 398:
398 “Mr Stokes’ evidence on this issue was not only implausible but, I must conclude, deliberately false”.
That is why Stokes will never allow a jury to determine if he is a perjurer or not. Because based on the above evidence by Justice Sackville, Stokes clearly is a perjurer. It really puts him in the Craig Thomson league for the stupidity of instituting the proceedings in the first place.
Kerry Stokes – The frivolous and vexatious litigant
The above C7 matter cost Channel 7 shareholders $200 million in legal costs as they lost and had to pay the legal fees for all the other parties. Probably the costliest court case this country has ever seen and Mr Stokes should have been declared a frivolous and vexatious litigant and banned from instituting his dodgy court cases again. Stokes has a long history of using the courts in an abuse of process to intimidate others.
Roll with the punches
While Stokes might be on the run in this battle I have certainly taken a few hits as per the below fine (Unpaid) which I received in August. But the fine will be part of Kerry Stokes’ legacy as it shows what a grubby person he is.
When people look at the above fine they need to remember that it is Kerry Stokes behind it. The court did not institute proceedings against me for breaching Kerry’s Super-injunction, Mr Stokes did. The question that needs to be asked: Is Mr Stokes a fit and proper person to be Chairman of Channel 7? Based on the above alone I think the average person would think he is not a fit and proper person and should be sacked.
I plan on doing jail time on principle instead of paying the bill. Although as someone pointed out it is a bit more complex as per their terms and conditions but I will deal with that when it comes as they have not tried to enforce the fine yet. (Click here to read the back page with the terms and conditions)
It has been a while since I updated where the court case was at so it was time for another post. But I will save most of what I have to say for submissions for the hearing in February. I believe the case is an important one to fight as it is new media versus old media and the outcome can and will have some impact on others using new media.
While I have represented myself in court against Kerry Stokes it has still been costly with time, travel and printing etc. It has only been possible to fight the case with help of the supporters of this site whom I sincerely thank. If you would like to help please read below.
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