Actor John Jarratt is suing the Australian Sunday Telegraph again.
Earlier this year, Jarratt sued the newspaper for defamation over reports he was accused of raping a woman in 1976. Police charged Jarratt in 2017 over the allegations but he was found not guilty, the Guardian reported previously. About a month after he filed his original lawsuit, he dropped it, as iMediaEthics has written.
Now, Jarratt is suing the news outlet again, but he is suing in a different court. His previous lawsuit was in NSW supreme court but now he is suing in federal court. Why does that matter?
The Guardian explains that the federal court is “a jurisdiction that has several advantages to plaintiffs including speed and the lack of a jury.” While Jarratt has hired a different attorney for this lawsuit, his lawyer for the first defamation lawsuit, Bruce McClintock, said the reason was likely for speed and because “he was defamed a second time” with another news outlet.
iMediaEthics has written to Jarratt’s lawyer, Bill Kalantzis, and the Telegraph‘s publisher News Corp Australia.