There was recently good news of the non-guilty verdict in actor John Jarratt’s #MeToo case. This followed successful defamation action by another actor, Geoffrey Rush, whose career had also been derailed by a #MeToo accusation. Both men are actors who had been around for years but happened to be hitting a peak in their careers when they found themselves publicly named and shamed following efforts by feminist activists to elicit accusations about high profile men. In both cases, unproven accusations were published in lurid newspaper stories before any proper investigation or trial.
Ultimately Geoffrey Rush won big – over $850,000 in defamation costs against the newspaper which defamed him as “King Leer” and probably more to come – and his accuser was found to be unreliable witness.
John Jarratt was accused of raping a housemate over 40 years ago but his accuser’s story was full of holes and the case was dismissed by a unanimous jury after 15 minutes deliberation. Jarratt is now calling for withholding of names in rape cases until proven guilty.
I was interviewed about all this by Andrew Bolt on Sky News and we thought you might enjoy seeing our discussion. Here’s the link to the video