Actor John Jarratt is suing The Daily Telegraph and journalist Jonathon Moran for defamation after he was last week found not guilty of raping a woman in the 1970s.
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Jarratt, 66, was acquitted in the NSW District Court on Friday after he pleaded not guilty and faced a week-long trial in Sydney.
The Wolf Creek actor told the jury he had sex with his female housemate, then aged 19, one night in 1976. The woman said Jarratt pinned her down and raped her, but he said the encounter was consensual and branded the woman's version of events a "fantasy".
"I did not rape this person," Jarratt said.
A jury of five men and seven women unanimously found him not guilty.
On Monday, one of Jarratt's lawyers said defamation proceedings had commenced against Nationwide News, the News Corp-owned publisher of The Daily Telegraph.
A spokeswoman for News Corp Australia declined to comment.
Chris Murphy, principal of Murphy's Lawyers, posted on Twitter that proceedings commenced in the NSW Supreme Court in November 2018 and documents "will now be served on the defendant". The case had been postponed to allow the rape trial to conclude.
The court confirmed Jarratt's lawyers have filed a statement of claim in the case against Nationwide News and Moran. The matter will be mentioned in court on August 16.
Giving evidence in his District Court trial, Jarratt said the first he heard of the rape allegation was when his agent contacted him at about 4.30pm on November 17, 2017, and told him there was going to be a newspaper story.
The story, published in the Telegraph the next day, was headlined: "Wolf Creek star in rape claim". It was written by Moran, the entertainment journalist who also penned the stories at the centre of the Geoffrey Rush defamation case.
Jarratt's trial heard the woman who accused him of rape made an initial complaint to police on November 10, 2017, and her case was assigned to a detective at Maroubra late on the afternoon of November 17.
Because that day was a Friday, the detective did not contact the woman until November 20, a Monday, to introduce himself and arrange for a statement to be taken.
The woman gave evidence in the trial that she "nearly had a heart attack" when she saw the story in the newspaper that weekend.
"It was the last thing I expected," she said.
Jarratt's lawyer has been contacted for comment.
- SMH/The Age
