Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\nA temporary order has been granted, forbidding the ABC from publishing the messages or mentioning their identities, occupation or employer on the grounds they were obtained via a breach of confidence. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ABC stands by the conduct of its journalists acting in the public interest,\u201d the broadcaster said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ABC is also concerned about the broader ramifications this decision may have on investigative journalism and the public\u2019s right to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Anthony McGrath said the court needed to consider whether the way the messages were obtained was \u201cimproper\u201d or \u201creprehensible\u201d.<\/p>\n
The messages \u201cprincipally contain shared jokes, insults of named other people known to AB, CD and EF (the athletes) in their sport and crude descriptions of sexual acts and domestic violence\u201d.<\/p>\n
Two of the men are married with children, with one of those men holding \u201cmany high-profile ambassador roles, commercial sponsorship arrangements and media roles\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told the court his messages \u201cwill be devastating to the important work that he performs as an advocate within and outside his sport\u201d, and all three men said the messages were \u201clikely to lead to serious harm to their reputations and standing as well as their financial interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
The men conceded they could be in breach of their club contracts and could face punishment from their sport\u2019s governing body for bringing the game into disrepute.<\/p>\n
The ABC building in Ultimo, Sydney pictured in 2022. Picture: NCA NewsWire \/ Jeremy PiperSource: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n
The court heard the ABC obtained the messages when the ex-partner – referred to as GH – of one of the men in the group chat took a photograph of the messages while they were together. GH then felt a \u201cstrong moral obligation\u201d to speak up about the messages after an \u201cacrimonious\u201d end to the relationship with the athlete.<\/p>\n
\u201cGH later said she found her partner\u2019s old mobile phone in a moving box after their relationship had ended, which she used to show (ABC reporter Marnie) Vinall messages in the group chat,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe claimed that her partner, referred to as AB, had previously given her his phone password. AB denied doing this, and told the court that he was \u2018horrified\u2019 to find that his former partner had possession of the old phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
GH also took the messages to an executive at her former partner\u2019s club and threatened to release it unless he was stopped from playing, with the club telling GH they considered the matter closed.<\/p>\n
Through her reporting Vinall contacted the athletes, their clubs and the sport\u2019s governing body which triggered the players suing her and the broadcaster for breach of confidence.<\/p>\n
Justice McGrath granted an interim order stopping the messages from being published last week, writing \u201cthere is no urgent news need in the public interest for the ABC to publish any story about the text messages\u201d, and that \u201cthe information contained in the Group Chat messages are not so trivial to constitute \u2018tittle-tattle\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence suggests that the text messages in the group chat are the private thoughts of the plaintiffs (in some instances expressed in vulgar and offensive terms), shared with each other and not beyond, and were never intended by the plaintiffs to be made public,\u201d McGrath ruled.<\/p>\n
A final hearing may not take place for several months, until which the injunction is expected to remain in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three professional athletes have been granted a court order barring the ABC from publishing a story, detailing group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-782728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}