Cowper takes on ABC over reporting
Lawyers for former National Australia Bank (NAB) financial planner, Graeme Cowper, claim a TV report by the ABC naming Cowper alongside generic reports of misconduct by some of the bank's advisers, could act "like a lightening-rod" suspicions raised by the broadcast.
Supreme Court of NSW Justice, Lucy McCallum, ruled that the case against the ABC and its reporter, Matthew Peacock, should be heard alongside Cowper's action against Fairfax Media, two Fairfax journalists, The Age and Jeff Morris, as previously reported.
In her judgement, Justice McCallum accepted that "in the television broadcasts, the plaintiff is not the subject of the degree of focus placed on him in the newspaper articles".
"The format of the television piece is to make extensive reference to generic conduct not attributed to the plaintiff and then to refer to him as one of ‘at least some financial planners identified in the leaked NAB report' who are still giving advice."
However, Justice McCallum accepted "that the naming of the plaintiff at the conclusion of the piece could act ‘like a lightening-rod' for all the suspicion conveyed by the broadcast".
While Justice McCallum said the ABC's reporting did not place Cowper under the same level of focus as the Fairfax articles, she found comments attributed to former Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) financial adviser, and whistleblower, Jeff Morris, had the potential to link Cowper to allegations of falsifying documents and forging signatures.
"They trusted him I think because they trusted NAB. It's a big institution; it's the same with the CBA. People trust the big institutions. And these people are representing those institutions and the institutions turn them loose, but the advice was appalling. In every case that I've seen so far, there's been excessive gearing, far too much borrowing that people couldn't service and substantial losses that have ruined people's lives," Morris said.
"The ‘him' identified in the third word of that paragraph is plainly Mr Cowper," Justice McCallum said.
"In my view, those remarks are reasonably capable of conveying the meaning that the specific advice identified in the imputation was the advice given by Mr Cowper."
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