Lawyer Rebekah Giles was involved in a dispute with her former partner that was labelled “an ugly revenge porn scandal” and she wrote, on social media website Instagram, to her former partner in 2018 “You and (the woman) will be very happy as long as you keep your Viagra script current, keep flashing your cash and keep the cocaine coming”.
Given that Rebekah Giles is representing Attorney-General Christian Porter in his defamation case against the ABC there are some questions that need answering so I emailed Ms Giles as per below, but I have not had a response at this point in time. There are other matters of concern with Rebekah Giles representing Christian Porter but let’s look at her dispute with her ex-boyfriend first.
The World News reported in September 2020:
High-flying defamation lawyer, Rebekah Giles, has been caught up in an ugly revenge porn scandal.
Her former partner John Salmon, 49, was sentenced to a two-year conditional release order without conviction at Sutherland Local Court in Sydney’s south on Tuesday, after threatening to publish explicit images of her after the pair broke up in May 2018.
The father of three was outraged after Ms Giles left an insulting comment on his Instagram page, the Daily Telegraph reported.
‘Good times! Before I found out your (sic) were cheating with the two dollar shop version of me and before that months of lying and cheating with others,’ Ms Giles wrote according to agreed police facts.
‘You and (the woman) will be very happy as long as you keep your Viagra script current, keep flashing your cash and keep the cocaine coming.’
Salmon’s solicitor Michael Corbett told Magistrate Jayeann Carney the social media outburst from the founder of boutique law firm Company Giles, was a ‘high level provocation’. He said Mr Salmon now knows full well he should have handled the situation differently.
Mr Corbett told the court the victim deliberately intended to damage Salmon’s reputation as a businessman, as a father, as a good friend to others.
The court heard the drama unfolded when Salmon ended their eight-month relationship after a bitter argument. Ms Giles had rummaged through Salmon’s car without consent to locate his phone and contact a woman she wrongly suspected he was having a secret relationship with, the court heard. When Ms Giles confronted Salmon he immediately left the premises.
The following day when Salmon was on a flight to New Zealand, Ms Giles took to Instagram, tagging several of the former couple’s friends. ‘I’m furious, if she doesn’t take down the posts … I have no hesitation in sharing explicit photos of her in response to the messages and in a published form to the likes of Sydney Confidential. I’m not f**king joking – if she wants to play this game, I’ll f**k her up,’ Salmon wrote to their mutual friend in response. (Click here to read more) or on another website (Click here to read more)
I haven’t been able to find the court judgement relating to the above matter but maybe a regular reader might be able to and put a link in the comment section below.
I emailed Rebekah Giles the below questions today (19/3/21):
From: SHANE DOWLING
Sent: Friday, 19 March 2021 3:27 PM
To: rebekah@companygiles.com.au
Cc: Maggie.dalton@stjames.net.au; sue@chrysanthou.com.au
Subject: Media questions – Christian Porter matter
Dear Ms Giles
I am writing an article about you and the Christian Porter v ABC defamation matter and I have a few questions.
- I am advised by the NSW Law Society that you do not currently have a NSW Practising Certificate. Is that correct?
- If question one is true, why do you not currently have a NSW Practicing Certificate and how do you manage to work as a solicitor in NSW?
- Can you confirm that you wrote on Instagram, tagging several of your former friends in relation to your former partner “‘Good times! Before I found out your (sic) were cheating with the two dollar shop version of me and before that months of lying and cheating with others,’ Ms Giles wrote according to agreed police facts. ‘You and (the woman) will be very happy as long as you keep your Viagra script current, keep flashing your cash and keep the cocaine coming.’?
- Are you aware of section 474.17 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code ACT 1995 – Using a Carriage Service to Menace, Harass or Cause Offence?
- Given you reportedly said “keep the cocaine coming”. Have you ever used cocaine and do you currently use cocaine?
Can you please respond by 7pm today so I can publish.
Regards
Shane Dowling
I have to wonder if Rebekah Giles’ comments about her ex-partner on the internet had something to do with her not currently having a NSW Practising Certificate because the NSW Law Society would not be impressed with one of their members writing something like that publically on social media. And I am sure the Law Society would have asked the same questions that I did in the email.
Based on the above alone I have major reservations about whether Rebekah Giles should be representing Porter given he is the AG and since she has not responded to the legitimate questions above I will follow-up with the Attorney-General’s office etc.
Christian Porter and Rebekah Giles
I decided to have a closer look at Ms Giles history after someone gave me a tip-off in the comment section, after I wrote the article about Porter copying Alan Jones’s failed defamation strategy, that Ms Giles “does not appear as a solicitor with a current NSW practising certificate on the NSW Law Society on line Register of Practitioners”.
I phoned the NSW Law Society and I was told that Ms Giles registration had lapsed on the 18th of February 2020 and to work as a solicitor in NSW you need to have a practising certificate. This raised more questions given that Ms Giles is representing Porter. As per the above email, I put the question to Ms Giles about her practising certificate, which she hasn’t answered but someone else wrote in the comment section that she is registered in Victoria which they say means she can work in NSW. I have not had that verified as of yet, but I will follow-up.
Rebekah Giles has also had other negative press written about her.
Did Rebekah Giles threaten sexual abuse survivors with defamation action?
Rebekah Giles represented Tracey Spicer who could be described as a founder of the Australian MeToo movement but Spicer had a huge falling out when some sexual assault victims were outed accidentally. The SMH reported:
The bitter fallout from the Australian MeToo movement has intensified, with a lawyer for leading figure Tracey Spicer accusing detractors of making “false and malicious statements” about her client.
But one woman who received a legal warning from Ms Spicer’s lawyer has hit back, saying Ms Spicer is refusing to take responsibility for potentially outing victims to the media.
Earlier this week, it was revealed Ms Spicer’s lawyer had flagged defamation concerns with at least three people after a backlash was sparked by Silent No More, the documentary Ms Spicer narrated for the ABC.
Last month, a pre-broadcast version of the three-part series inadvertently revealed the names and faces of domestic abuse and sexual assault survivors without their consent.
After an online backlash, Ms Spicer’s lawyer Rebekah Giles, said Ms Spicer was entitled to defend herself against “false and malicious statements”. Ms Spicer and Ms Giles both sought to differentiate a “concerns notice” from a legal threat.
However, the woman who received an email from Ms Spicer’s lawyer to her own said she felt the former Network 10 newsreader was being disingenuous. “While that email from Tracey’s lawyer may not technically amount to a concerns notice, it was threatening and I was extremely concerned,” she said. “It feels like weasel words. For her to be using cynical semantics and legal jargon to spin, minimise, downplay and reframe responsibility tells me she’s not sorry and she’s learnt absolutely nothing from all of this. (Click here to read more)
Threatening journalists at The Age with defamation regarding international bribery
In 2016 The Age newspaper in Melbourne was running numerous stories about an oil company paying bribes globally.
The Age reported:
Over the past few months, the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office and the Australian Federal Police have been running a major international corruption probe into Monaco-based company Unaoil.
It is a big story. Unaoil’s predictable response has been to distract, deny and threaten legal action.
Unaoil’s lawyer Rebekah Giles has stated she will launch a defamation action against Fairfax Media. This is no idle threat. Unaoil is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and could spend years pursuing unwarranted litigation. It may also be that the Ahsanis fear being charged by police and hope that a lawsuit may bolster their inevitable “trial by media” claims. (Click here to read more)
Rebekah Giles has not been forgotten by The Age and Michael Bachelard, Investigations Editor, The Age, wrote on the 16/3/21 regarding Christian Porter:
His solicitor, Rebekah Giles, also represented the deep sleep doctors. And, when working for the corrupt Ahsani family of Monaco and their company Unaoil, she ran a legal campaign and a parallel public relations campaign against reporting in The Age and Herald.
In one opinion piece published in The Australian, Giles wrote among other things: “My clients believe Fairfax was an instrument in … blackmail”. In March 2019 her clients, Saman and Cyrus Ahsani pleaded guilty to conspiring to facilitate millions of dollars of bribes. (Click here to read more)
Christian Porter has also been crying loud about “trial by media” the same as Unaoil did. So, why then has Christian Porter retained a lawyer who has a history of running PR campaigns if he has nothing to hide? And Giles’ clients at Unaoil ended up pleading guilty to bribery so Giles’ claims of defamation etc where ultimately proven to be lies.
Has Rebekah Giles taken out a super-injunction to hide something about herself?
If you do a Google search for Rebekah Giles down the bottom of the first page of results you will see what it says below:
In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 2 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at LumenDatabase.org.
In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at LumenDatabase.org.
If you click on the links it says: Google received a request to remove content from our services based on a court order. Due to the nature of the court’s order, Google has not provided a copy to Lumen.
Normally you can see the court orders but they have also been suppressed by the looks although it doesn’t actually say. If you go to the next step and enter an email address so you can be emailed access to the page that shows the URL that has been suppressed it comes up with:
Normally the URL’s will show up and from that you can find out, or at least get an idea if it has been deleted, of what was blocked.
What has happened is that an unknown person has gone to court and applied for and received a suppression order for an unknown article, picture, video or something on the internet. Given that the above Google search was Rebekah Giles it is almost certain that she is the person who has gone to court to have something blocked.
Since Rebekah Giles in representing Christian Porter, who as Attorney-General is the highest legal officer in the country, I believe the public has a right to know what has been blocked in Google searches in relation to Rebekah Giles and does it affect her suitability to represent Christian Porter.
I will follow-up with the Attorney-General and relevant parties.
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Categories: Attorney-General Christian Porter
I am looking forward to the legal gyrations of this case. It seems the plaintiff has already been challenged by the Federal Court on the grounds of the complaint, which quotes only one article as the reason.
The ABC’s lead legal, the former Solicitor General of Australia, is regarded as one of the most ethical in a profession, that some might say, on occasion, lacks a moral compass in dealing with issues of this nature.
In view of the large number of solicitors and barristers disbarred, fined or censured in the last two decades, and the subsequent silence from the remaining lawyers, is it right to use legal practitioners and ethics in the same sentence?
Ms Giles represented Brittany Higgins for her defamation proceeding against Senator Reynolds. Whilst there isn’t a conflict of interest in representing both clients – surely it leaves a sour taste knowing your solicitor is now representing Christian Porter shortly after you receive a settlement sum from one of his colleagues.
https://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/files/web-pdf/Aus_Solicitors_Conduct_Rules.pdf Section 10 applies here I think.
pond scum always rise to their own level,seems seems there is a lot of questions lying there about a complainant withdrawing the complaint then committing suicide the next day, I wonder who leaned on her HARD to cover this mess up, nothing surprises me about the scum supposedly running the country
In regards to the removed content, try searching on another search engine like duckduckgo.
You’ll find that you’ll get more results and will exclude Google searches that have been subject to legal restriction.
This one will run & run, to the delight of all except the participants.
And those few who still cling to the notion of a fair & decent society.
Is there not an old saying that “Only a fool goes to Law“?
QUESTION: I understand this to be a private matter. Therefore is it CP who foots his bill entirely? Once again- good work KCA
Cleaver Green managed to be a fool in his personal life and still represent clients. Oh wait. He was a fictional character. Never mind.
Ridiculous Law system that we have in this country.. A senior pollie, the current AG, who is employed & well paid by the taxpayers is suing the ABC who is funded by the taxpayers. No matter who wins or loses, the poor taxpayer loses in the end. What a joke !
They rort the system and that’s an understatement. It’s so unethical. People like this are loaded to fund their own court costs.
Amazing work Shane. Thank you.
The same solicitor, Giles, represented a colleague in a case not long ago. Huge issues from day 1. Didn’t disclose a conflict, over billed, rubbish advice. They refused to pay & she then moved firms. Poor choice of lawyer for many reasons it seems… wonder who advised Porter that the blind trust was a good idea, hmmmm