Christian Porters high-profile barrister was warned that supporters of the former attorney generals accuser were acting like a cult and would make things very bad for her if she took on his defamation case, a court has heard.
Sue Chrysanthou SC said on Wednesday that she was warned by her friend, the barrister Matthew Richardson, not to take on the former attorney generals case because he was worried about what a mess it would be.
He was upset because, he told me, he was worried for me, and that his friends were upset or behaving like a cult on this topic and that they wouldnt let it go and they would talk to the media and make it very bad for me and he was very upset about how that would impact me and how it would impact him, Chrysanthou said.
[He was] trying to talk me out of being in the matter because of his concern for me and what a mess it was going to be in the press, because he thought his friends would make public statements about it that would defame me.
An urgent federal court hearing is deciding whether Chrysanthou should be blocked from representing Porter in his high-stakes defamation bid against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan.
Jo Dyer, who was a debater with a woman in the late 1980s who subsequently alleged she was raped by Porter, which he denies, claims Chrysanthou has a conflict of interest because of a meeting the women had in 2020 regarding an article in the Australian newspaper by Janet Albrechtsen about a November ABC Four Corners episode Dyer appeared in.
Chrysanthou, a defamation specialist who has acted in a number of high-profile cases including actor Geoffrey Rushs successful case against the Daily Telegraph, says she attended the meeting as a favour to Richardson, the son of former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson, and did not charge for her advice.
On Wednesday, Chrysanthou was grilled about her memory of the meeting, which was also attended by Richardson, Dyers solicitor, Michael Bradley, and James Hooke, a managing director at Macquarie Bank and a longtime friend of both Porter and his accuser who in March released a statement revealing he had relevant discussions with Porters accuser from mid-1988 until her death in June 2020 and with Porter from 1992 onwards.
The court on Tuesday heard testimony from Hooke. Most of it was held in secret but Dyers barrister, Michael Hodge QC, previously told the court Hookes evidence sweeps away the last vestiges of Chrysanthous argument that she does not have any confidential information from the meeting.
But Chrysanthou told the court she did not know why Hooke was at the meeting, which she said lasted about an hour, and did not have any specific memory of receiving confidential information from him or Dyer which was not on the public record.
I was expressing my views and going through all the defamation issues I thought were relevant, and other than the express questions I asked and received answers to I dont recall anyone interrupting me in any substantial way other than to ask me questions to explain my advice, she said.
I cant and havent been able to recall anyone interrupting me to give me further information of any substance.
Asked about a follow-up meeting with Bradley in which he described the conference as highly entertaining, Chrysanthou responded: Looking at it now in my view hes referring to the fact that I was highly entertaining.
The court has previously heard that after the 20 November meeting, Chrysanthou had exchanged a series of emails with the people at the meeting about a concerns notice sent to the Australian newspaper in relation to the article. The last came on 4 March this year, 11 days before Porters statement of claim was filed.
Chrysanthou told the court after she was approached about accepting the Porter brief, she recognised that she needed to check if she had been given confidential information.
She said that based on her recollection of the meeting and a search of her emails, she did not believe she had any access to confidential information given all the public statements that had been made, but asked Richardson what he thought.
She agreed that in their first conversation the barrister told her he thought it was a bad idea but said he did not raise the prospect of any confidential information until an email later that week. On either the Friday or Saturday that week, Chrysanthou again spoke to a distressed Richardson.
He told you he didnt think you should be taking [the Porter] case, Michael Hodge QC, Dyers barrister, asked Chrysanthou on Wednesday.
He said a lot more than that but he said that, yes, Chrysanthou responded.
Richardson then sent her an email on the Sunday in which he suggested she might be in possession of confidential information. Chrysanthou told the court she had replied asking what the information was but he didnt respond.
Pushed by Hodge on why she had not listened to Richardson, she replied she had spoken to two former bar association presidents [and] two other silks and everyone disagreed with Matthew.
Yes but the difference between Matthew and everyone else was that everyone else could only rely on what you told them about what you knew [and] Mr Richardson was the one person you spoke to who was also at the conference, Hodge responded.
The hearing continues.