A FORMER Playford mayoral candidate has been ordered to pay $100,000 in damages after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal over a 2017 defamation ruling.
On Friday, Penfield Gardens man Mark Aldridge lost his appeal against a 2017 ruling that he defamed fruit and vegetable business owner Benjamin Johnston in a series of Facebook posts.
The case related to Mr Aldridge’s application in 2015 to open up a “farmers market” outside the Old Spot Hotel at Salisbury Heights, which was challenged by Mr Johnston, who once owned a fruit and vegetable shop at Pooraka.
Salisbury Council approved the development before it was challenged by Mr Johnston in the Environmental, Resource and Development (ERD) Court.
During the legal battle, Mr Aldridge published two Facebook posts on his personal page which caused Mr Johnston to sue him for defamation.
The first post, published on November 25, 2015, alleged Mr Johnston was “intent on closing farmers markets in Australia…” and that he was a “greedy man”.
The second, posted in February 2016, stated “Since this started, threats to my family, stall holders and others have continued and still are a regular occurrence, no one wants to pick up the phone mist (sic most) nights to threats of rape of his wife or death threats”.
Judge Peter Brebner, during the 2017 defamation trial, found statements in both posts were defamatory, that Mr Aldridge was the author, and that comments posted on the Facebook posts were also the responsibility of Mr Aldridge as a secondary publisher.
Throughout the trial, Mr Aldridge changed his stance over who was the author of both posts, initially stating he penned them, before blaming a “hacker” and other users of his personal page.
In July of 2017, the District Court ruled in favour of Mr Johnston and ordered Mr Aldridge to pay $100,000 in damages.
Mr Aldridge subsequently appealed the decision, calling for extra time to amend his defence to, among other actions, plead response to attack, that the judgement be set aside, the plaintiff’s (Mr Johnston’s) claim be dismissed, or in the alternative, the matter be remitted for trial.
The former mayoral candidate submitted 16 grounds of appeal, which were considered by a full court including Supreme Court judges Honourable Chief Justice Chris Kourakis, Honourable Justice David Peek and Honourable Justice Judy Hughes
Ultimately, the full court unanimously rejected all 16 of Mr Aldridge’s grounds for appeal on Friday, concluding the posts and associated comments were defamatory, appropriate damages were sought and Judge Peter Brebner was correct in his 2017 rulings.
Justice Peek, in his judgement, wrote if the appeal was upheld, Mr Aldridge would have “low prospects” of being successful at a subsequent retrial.
“Thirdly, if an appeal were to be allowed on this ground, this could only lead to a re-trial (and not to a substitution of a verdict in Aldridge’s favour) having regard to all of the circumstances,” he wrote.
“It is quite clear that Aldridge would have very low prospects of success at any such a re-trial conducted on all or any of the amended defences sought.
“At the same time, such re-trial would occasion very significant detriments for Johnston.”
Honourable Chief Justice Kourakis wrote that, while he did not believe Mr Aldridge’s first Facebook post was defamatory, the subsequent comments and second post were.
“In all other respects, I agree with the reasons of Peek J. (Honourable Justice David Peek),” he wrote.
“On the question of damages, I would not make any lesser award. Even though the first post was not defamatory, Mr Aldridge is responsible for the comments made on that post by others for the reasons given by Peek J.
“Those remarks, together with the second post, justify the award of damages made by the trial judge.”