Marsden v Amalgamated Television Services Pty Limited [2000] NSWSC 204

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Marsden v Amalgamated Television Services Pty Limited [2000] NSWSC 204 CURRENT JURISDICTION: Common Law FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 20223 of 1995; 20592 of 1996 HEARING DATE(S) : 21 March 2000 JUDGMENT DATE : 21 March 2000

JOHN MARSDEN (Plaintiff)

PARTIES : v

AMALGAMATED TELEVISION SERVICES PTY LIMITED (Defendant) JUDGMENT OF : Levine J

I Barker Q.C. M R Hall (Plaintiff) COUNSEL : R Stitt Q.C. J S Wheelhouse (Defendant) Phillips Fox (Plaintiff) SOLICITORS : Mallesons Stephen Jaques (Defendant) CATCHWORDS : On admissibility of part of MFI's 119 &125 DECISION : See paragraph 9

DLJT: 125 (Ex Tempore - Revised) [2000] NSWSC 204

THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION DEFAMATION LIST No. 20223 of 1995 No. 20592 of 1996

JUSTICE DAVID LEVINE

TUESDAY 21 MARCH 2000

JOHN MARSDEN (Plaintiff)

v

AMALGAMATED TELEVISION SERVICES PTY LIMITED ACN 000 145 246 (Defendant)

JUDGMENT (On admissibility of part of MFI's 119 & 125)

1 HIS HONOUR: The plaintiff has tendered part of MFI 125. Page 1 identifies the document as a Final Report dated 26 July 1995 relating to "a special investigation into criminal allegations against John Robert Marsden, a member of the New South Wales Police Board". Paragraphs 15, 16 and 17, earlier marked as MFI 119, constitute the substantive component of the tender and, in general terms, relate to the witness John Pearce and Chan's Canton Village, a Chinese restaurant at Liverpool. 2 Mr Pearce was questioned by Mr Stitt on this subject arising from paragraph 40 of exhibit 40, forming part of exhibit 47, which is a statutory declaration that has been referred to as the Denham Court statutory declaration. 3 Paragraph 40 of that statutory declaration reads: "This is the worst thing that has happened to me in my life. I was abused but I have named the wrong person. I have named a person that was a friend of mine, that befriended me. I know now from that the police have said that I would have been easily proved not to be telling the truth. The favourite Chinese restaurant I refer to in the Statutory Declaration wasn't opened until 1980. John Marsden's house, as I describe in the Statutory Declaration, were the renovations and I now know that they were renovations that were put in 1983/84 and the police found that out from the plans at Liverpool Council". 4 Mr Stitt's questions are set out at transcript pages 4416.15 to 4417.10: "Q. … What was the information that the police gave you which you had in order to write that in paragraph 40? A. Well, it's at home. I should have brought it with me. I'll show you what they said. They wrote to me and they told me. That's why. I thought about it and I said: That's correct. That is right, and I checked up on a lot of other things that Channel 7 didn't check up on, and I realised--