A building union secretary is settling his defamation claim against a Canberra news website which falsely accused him of being charged with a criminal offence.
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Lawyers for Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union ACT branch secretary Dean Hall had alleged the RiotACT painted their client as a criminal and a ''violent bully''. The case is now headed for resolution, with the parties this week telling the ACT Supreme Court the matter was being settled.
The terms of settlement have yet to be finalised and the value of any payout remains unclear.
Both Mr Hall and the website's editor, John Griffiths, declined to comment yesterday.
The defamation claim stemmed from a post on the website in June last year alleging Mr Hall was facing court after an altercation at the Dickson Tradies Club.
Mr Griffiths then posted a link to the ACT Magistrates Court website which showed a ''D Hall'' was appearing before a magistrate.
It transpired the man facing court was not the union secretary.
And a subsequent statement from ACT Policing, published on the RiotACT, said independent witnesses described Mr Hall being assaulted after trying to intervene in a fight. Police said no assault complaints were made and no charges were laid.
Mr Hall took the RiotACT, Mr Griffiths and the site's managing editor, Timothy Hyde, to court seeking aggravated damages.
Law firm Slater and Gordon, representing Mr Hall, said in court documents the RiotACT failed to check whether their client was the right man. ''Had they done so, the defendants would have known that the plaintiff was not the person referred to as being in the court list [in the post],'' they wrote.
In a statement of claim they alleged the website's actions were ''wanton, fraudulent, malicious and cruel''. Mr Hall, through his lawyers, argued the posting and comments on the news site were defamatory and suggested he was a ''thug'', a ''violent bully'' and a criminal.
Similar material was also allegedly posted on the social networking site Facebook.
''The defendants must have known that the information being provided … was unreliable,'' the lawyers wrote.
''It was reprehensible for the defendants [to] publish the imputations without taking any steps to verify them.'' In a defence filed with the ACT Supreme Court last month the defendants admitted uploading the material at the centre of the legal claim.
But, prior to the settlement agreement being reached, they initially denied the material was defamatory and in court documents flagged their intention to fight the civil action.
The matter is due back in court in May.
