'High-profile man': Courts clash with content creator

Queensland law enforcement has cracked down on a content creator who published the name of a high-profile person implicated in an extortion case. The content creator allegedly breached a suppression order more than 50 times, and is now facing charges for the alleged offending. Investigative reporter Grace Tobin and Cairns reporter Conor Byrne explain how the next phase of this bizarre story unfolded. If you have any questions you'd like Grace, Conor and Stocky to answer in future episodes, please email [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. The Case Of is the follow-up to the hit podcast Mushroom Case Daily, and all episodes of that show will remain available in the back catalogue of The Case Of.

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  The name of a prominent Queensland man implicated in an extortion case is available online right now, but we have been ganged, which might actually be for the best when you hear what happened to the guy who leaked this. I'm Stephen Stockwell, this is The Case Of.

• 0:58Speaker 06

  The highly unusual and secretive court case. Alleged repeated breaches of a strict secrecy order. The man appeared in Cairns magistrate's court.

• 1:07Speaker 05

  Charged with extortion, allegedly threatened to reveal evidence of his former partner having had a relationship with a high profile Queensland man. I love telling you what happens in court. That is the whole point of this podcast, but for this story, I have to hold my tongue. Not because a defence barrister asked for suppression or because a prosecutor wanted one, because a magistrate in Cairns decided a man implicated in an extortion case couldn't be named. This is a story that started in the Cairns courthouse. So for this episode, we're joined by Conor Byrne, an ABC reporter based in Cairns, who has had front row seats to this process. Connor, welcome back to The Case Of. Hello. We've also got Grace Tobin from ABC Investigations, who has been digging into

• 1:52Speaker 05

  this story as well. Grace, thanks for coming back on the pod.

• 1:55Speaker 06

  Thanks, Stocky.

• 1:56Speaker 05

  Now, while the name of this mystery man is suppressed, it is online, as I've mentioned. Thanks, or maybe no thanks, to a member of the Cairns public who was in the room and who posted about it before the order came in. Now, in our last episode, Connor, we spoke about how, you know, this man would be okay after he cooperated with police, after he took this, uh, this post down. But all of that changed. What happened to him?

• 2:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, to be fair, he, he took down the post, but he didn't exactly abide because in the days after he took down the original post naming the high-profile Queensland man, he then made additional posts which repeatedly identified the public figure. And posts of this online content creator attracted statewide and nationwide attention. So he was arrested on a Friday night, this is June the 12th, a full fortnight after the original bail application, when the high-profile Queensland man's name was first mentioned on May the 29th.

• 2:53Speaker 05

  Okay, right, so this is a couple of weeks later. He, um, you know, as we spoke about in our last episode, he hadn't technically breached the suppression when he first posted about this because it hadn't been suppressed at that point, but, you know, then I guess the, the ongoing mentions, that's a pretty clear breach of a, uh, of a suppression order. So he ends up in the watch house. I'm assuming he ends up back in court as well, Connor?

• 3:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was back in court the next morning. Now, this is on a, on a Saturday morning, so people might not be aware that courts can open any day of the year, they're open public holidays, Saturdays, Sundays, may not be i- in every courthouse, but in a nearby courthouse, you can get a hearing if you want. So he's back in court on a Saturday morning on the wrong side of the dock, so he's behind the glass in courtroom one. And it also in the courtroom was magistrate Dominic Brunello, prosecutor Senior Sergeant Stuart Clyde Smith, and a duty lawyer named Peter Harzma, who was representing the online content maker at this one hearing. So Senior Sergeant Clyde Smith told the court he had no conditions under which he would agree to bailing the content creator, and he strongly opposed his release in a lengthy

• 4:01Speaker 03

  argument, but that the bail conditions were suggested and set by magistrate. Brunello that morning and they were that the online content creator stays off social media and the online content maker agreed to that. So he's since told the court that he would have agreed that morning to whatever got him out of the watch house. And I'm unsure if anyone has been in the Cairns watch house, maybe they have, but it's not winning any awards. We've just put stories up online about the the situation and the condition of the watch house. And there has been a human rights breaches within the watch house.

• 4:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, you know, if you've got a an online content creator who's bread and butter is producing content, being on social media and they're agreeing to not do that for a period of time, you know, there's going to be a pretty decent stick or a pretty decent carrot involved in that somewhere. Grace, I mean, you know, we've got to man this content creator who we aren't naming either. Why are we being so careful about this bloke's name?

• 4:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, so basically, there's nothing technically stopping us from naming the local content creator. But the problem that we have is that if we name him, it may lead people to certain posts that he's made in the past. The interesting thing is that whilst police have gotten him to take down these posts and he's even had to shut down his social media accounts, the internet, though, doesn't seem to permanently ever erase things. And particularly in the world that we live in now with AI and lots of blogs and those sorts of things, it's not necessarily completely erased from the internet. So we are being

• 5:39Speaker 06

  very cautious. And I think really most media are being very cautious about leading people accidentally to the name of this high profile man through the content creator.

• 5:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. It's also why, you know, I guess you're not hearing us talking about where we have seen this name, where we found that name. We don't want to give any instruction to to where it may be. Connor, we have this online content creator. He is released from the watch house this Saturday after agreeing to these bad terms, obviously minus his social media. Then what?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and while he was arrested, he also had things seized, like his laptop and his phone, and there was a search of the house. The search warrant signed by Acting Magistrate Mioli, who made the original suppression order, and his computer, his mobile phone, other devices were seized, and he was charged with disobeying the court order. So, and I'll just go back now to, he's gotten out of the watchhouse, but he is back in court a few days later. This is Tuesday, June 16th, to face his charges of breaching the suppression order before Magistrate James Morton and Police Prosecutor Markham Maynard, who are both strongly encouraging this content maker to get a lawyer, given he is self-represented again.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  Senior Sergeant Markham tells the court that the suppression order, it's not about protecting the married man, but about protecting the woman involved in the extortion case. And the content creator argues that he hasn't seen this physical suppression order and that he's repeatedly asked for it. He asked the court for it on this day, although he was in the courtroom when it was read out by Acting Magistrate Mioli at the start. Now, at this point, Senior Sergeant Markham says, "Police are considering a contempt of court charge. You don't want one of those. It's an elevated charge. To my knowledge, it hasn't been laid at this point, but it's serious." And that breach charge has now been adjourned until August.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  Right, okay, so that's where we're up with this content creator's process. It's kind of the way, I guess, the court's trying to manage this information getting out into the world and the punishment, I suppose, for distributing that information. Connor, you know, there's a search of this house. We often have police wearing body worn cameras when they're going through places like that. You know, what do we hear or what's involved in that when it's played to the court?

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, a month after the arrest on July 13th, the content creator, still without access to his social media, he tried to get his bail conditions varied to allow him back on social media, so he says, so he could stay in touch with friends and family and to generate an income, if that's what he does for a crust. And the online body worn footage of his arrest from the police officers was replayed in this court hearing. This is when he got back in front of Magistrate Dom. Dominic Brunello, who asked that the police body cam of the arrest be replayed because the online content creator was making his argument about the lack of a physical suppression order and how the content creator was saying he couldn't abide by

• 8:32Speaker 03

  an order which quote unquote didn't exist. So in the video, the name of the high profile Queensland man was repeated several times, you might say provocatively, and our content creator alluded that the footage would just be replayed in court and that name would be repeated again and again. And this is, he was referring to the Saturday morning when he appeared in court for his, from the watch house in his bail hearing. Now, he didn't, he was in the watch house and he was on a video screen into the, into the, into the courtroom at that point. So magistrate Brunello rejected the man's application against his own terms, saying the content creator made more than 50 online posts that were a deliberate and repetitive breach of the order for personal gain. And then

• 9:15Speaker 03

  the content creator actually told the court, he regretted agreeing to his bail condition, actually told the court, he'd rather be in custody with at least a prospect of getting back on his social media at some point in the near future than agreeing to a ban which could last, who knows when, until an outcome on his breach of bail charges and which are next going to be heard on August the 4th, but we don't know if that's going to be finalized there and then. So the ball is really in his court now, what he's going to do.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, all right. I mean, Connie, you mentioned earlier that, you know, he continued to make posts, 50 posts on this kind of being aware of the restrictions. That's a, that's a significant number of posts about the name that, you know, we can assume he knows he's not supposed to be mentioning.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's a lot. It's not, it's clearly not an error. It was repetitive. It went on. And this is how it really got out there into the world. This is how the internet knows. But it, it was a lot. And the, this is why the magistrate said, I'm not going to give you back your social media because you have not proven that you can restrain yourself from mentioning this name on social media.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  Grace, in our last episode, we talked a little bit about how people seem to be kind of throwing this name around online with almost apparent impunity. You know, didn't appear to be much of a reaction to this. I mean, does this arrest show that the courts are taking this seriously?

• 10:36Speaker 06

  Look, I do think it does show that, and I think really the question that some of us have is, would this same type of action actually be taken by the courts and police if the high-profile man wasn't as high-profile as he is? Now, we cannot answer that question right now, but it is something that interests me about this case. It's looking at the sort of bigger picture and the actions that are involved. But certainly the fact that someone's actually been charged with breaching a court order, I mean, that certainly doesn't happen every day of the week in every type of case. And it does send a warning to everyone, the media included, that, you know, action would and could be taken against them

• 11:20Speaker 06

  if they continue to publish this name against the suppression order.

• 11:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, but, you know, there's a lot of conversation online, still including the name of this high-profile Queensland man. Are we aware of anyone else that's been charged?

• 11:34Speaker 06

  Look, not that I'm aware of. I certainly haven't seen or heard of anyone else. I don't think, Connor, you haven't seen anyone else come through the Cairns Magistrates Court. We've got lots of ABC reporters out there in lots of different courtrooms. We haven't heard of anything, not to say that it hasn't happened. But, you know, as you say, there are people freely posting this online under their own names, not necessarily making any secret of the fact of who they are. Maybe people are not so aware of the full details or the seriousness of the nature of breaching a suppression order. But certainly we can see with this online content creator that the risk is there. And if police do want to take it further, they possibly could.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  And the police can't be expected to be going through every local community group, looking at comments and then trying to get in touch with these people and charging each one of them. There's no room in the watchhouse, I can assure you that. And I don't think the courts are going to be able to deal with it. It doesn't seem to have stopped this information from getting out there and spreading. I'm not sure there's any way that that can be stopped.

• 12:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 06

  Which really goes back to something else that I think will become more and more of an issue as this case rolls on, and that is this futile altogether. That once you lose control of the spread of this name, then the suppression order isn't strictly necessary anymore. And I'm sure that we are going to see that argument rolled out in court at some stage.

• 13:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I'm very keen to hear a bit about how the ABC is fighting this grace, because the ABC is challenging the suppression order. How are we challenging it? What's going on at the moment?

• 13:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, so basically, it is the ABC and other media outlets. There's a pool of media organisations who have come together to challenge this suppression order. And you do see that in high-profile cases, in cases that the media see of public interest, where we will go in to fight for transparency and open justice, and this case is no different. We've pulled together resources, and essentially, once the acting magistrate decided no, she was going to maintain a blanket suppression order over this entire case, the only real

• 13:55Speaker 06

  avenue left to take was what's called a judicial review in the Supreme Court. So we had to take the argument to a higher court, and that was lodged the very day after this decision was made in Cairns Magistrates Court. And now that date is coming up very soon, where we will see a King's Council barrister acting on behalf of media outlets. I understand the defendant in this case as well. He has a lawyer acting for him in this case, too. He is not against certain details of this case going public, make of that what you will, but that's sort of an interesting combo there.

• 14:39Speaker 06

  And so what we are going to have is, this matter will be heard by a judge in the Supreme Court, who will essentially decide if the acting magistrate's decision to keep the case Suppressed was lawful. So that's going to be one to pay close attention to in the coming weeks.

• 14:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think you, as you're describing the timeline and the work that's being done here, I think this really shows as well that this is quite a long process. I mean, this initial ruling was made at the end of May and we're now, you know, kind of end of July and we're still waiting for these dates to come.

• 15:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, it seems the way with courts generally, and I've since become aware that particularly in Queensland, there seems to be an absolute backlog in the court system and it does take time. The judge who will hear this judicial review in the Supreme Court wasn't available until the end of July. So until then, everything just remains on hold. The prominent man's identity remains hidden and we all just have to wait to hear whether this suppression order will be lifted. If the media loses in the Supreme Court, his identity could stay secret forever because the order has, that the magistrate's made, has no end date on it.

• 15:55Speaker 06

  So we might see this case hidden from public view forever, which would be a really interesting situation. And I, I think that that's probably the worst case scenario from, you know, a public interest and transparency point of view, but it's a real risk at this stage.

• 16:14Speaker 05

  Hmm, yeah, absolutely.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  And just on that mention of the, the next Supreme Court date, we weren't allowed in the last hearing and the media probably won't be allowed to sit in on the next one either. So the outcome, we may not know until the lawyers come out and tell us.

• 16:28Speaker 05

  So you've got no, I guess, insight into the arguments that are being made. I mean, we have a lawyer in the room, so we can kind of have them explain what's unfolded there, but you can't even be a part of that, even though the media is a party to this argument?

• 16:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, Connor and I were outside court when the directions hearing happened for this review recently. And, you know, we were in court to begin with, then we were ordered outside of court and there was a whole group of journalists, um, sitting outside, locked doors and just waiting and waiting for the lawyers to emerge and give some sense of what had gone down.

• 17:03Speaker 05

  Grace, is it really open justice when it takes so long and, you know, is, is really expensive?

• 17:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, look, I think I can see it from lots of different points of view and part of my job as a journalist is often sitting on the fence and looking at totally, you know, one side and then the alternate view. So it's not as though I feel very strongly in the camp of one corner other than having open justice, I think is obviously an important factor of journalism as well. But it is frustrating in the day-to-day work that I do and it does frustrate any opportunity to properly cover a story for the public. So for me, that includes reporting public interest or angles of investigation.

• 17:52Speaker 06

  But, you know, on that, on cost, you know, King's counsel comes at a very high cost and Queensland Police are fighting back pretty hard on this case too. They've engaged their own top silk to represent them in the Supreme Court to ensure, from their point of view, that the suppression order isn't lifted. And really, that is a fight to keep this high-profile man's name secret and so they will have a top lawyer in there doing his best to ensure that the suppression order stays in place.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  I'll just jump in and just to balance it almost by saying, Senior Sergeant Markham, he did say in one of the hearings that the suppression order, it's not about protecting this high-profile married man but about protecting the woman involved in the extortion case at the start. So I'm not taking sides, but I just think it's important to put that in there.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 18:44Speaker 06

  And I would just jump in there and also say that what's interesting about that is that because this extortion case comes under a domestic violence charge, that the complainant and defendant's name are protected anyway. So I think that that's kind of an interesting thing to also throw into the mix there, that this additional suppression order really is only going as far as protecting this third person in the mix of the allegations and the facts and circumstances surrounding those allegations. But certainly, the complainant's name was already protected through the domestic. Violence provision.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  And by naming the high profile man, it's it's on it is unlikely that we it would lead to identifying the woman or the defendant in the original extortion case.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  Hmm. Yeah, it's it's really interesting because I've kind of moved from position to position as we've been kind of covering this story because, you know, initially you hear that argument from the magistrate in Cairns to say, well, look, if I release this name, then I'm doing the work of this extortion, you know, this this person would be extorted. This is what we're trying to prevent happen here. That's the reason that's come before the courts. And then, yeah, you go a bit further and you think, well, actually, hang on a second. It's only extortion if we know who that person is. And Grace, as you say, that name wouldn't be revealed as well. So, yeah, you start to kind of follow that down and go, well, that argument does make sense. But then you have this argument and then you have this argument. So it unfolds in a in a really interesting way. Despite this being a name we cannot mention, we have had a number of emails from listeners emailed to the

• 20:13Speaker 05

  caselab at abc.net.au asking us if we can talk about this, asking us how we can talk about this. They know the name of the high profile Queensland man. And there's one email particularly from someone in Queensland who was aware of the name. And they were wondering, given the status of this person, don't they have a right to know about it?

• 20:35Speaker 06

  Uh.

• 20:37Speaker 05

  Isn't that what we're here to talk about?

• 20:41Speaker 06

  Well, that's why we're in court. That that's why, you know, that's why I think this fight is taking place because I think that, you know, there certainly is an argument from the media and the ABC included that there is public interest in covering this case. I think that there is an argument on the flip side that this is a domestic violence case and, you know, media shouldn't be involved. It involves an affair like these are grubby details. Don't get involved. It's a personal situation. But I think I certainly am looking at it from a much bigger point of view, which, you know, I keep harping on about. But if it involves a powerful person and powerful people, then we have to keep a close eye on

• 21:25Speaker 06

  that. And we have to look at whether there's been influence. Why certain decisions have been made and that is literally our job. So, yeah, I, I think, yeah, the public probably does have a right to know. I think usually where there's um secrets involved, then, you know, we wanna know about it. But uh, yeah, it, I, I. I don't know. I feel like I'm being super careful here because I can't um reveal too much. Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  It's, it's not a big secret. It's not collusion. It's not a conspiracy. And a lot of what we do, we know a lot more about some of the stories we cover, but we're just not able to reveal that. For legal reasons, for ethical reasons, um for editorial reasons, et cetera. But we're working on it, put it that way.

• 22:07Speaker 06

  And I would say that was really the whole reason why I actually started publishing about this story is that it felt like there was this huge elephant in the room. And that actually it was undermining trust in media and us as journalists as well, that people were asking, well, I can. Find this online. Why can't the ABC tell us who this is? I've certainly noticed a lot of comments online, uh e- even on our own coverage, uh questioning why the mainstream media isn't reporting the name. And so we are also part of some kind of cover up. And I actually think that's why this story is.

• 22:45Speaker 06

  Trending so much online because it's actually going into conspiracy circles. And once it enters those sorts of circles. I think that you're getting a lot of different people interested in a lot of different areas that this may not have anything to do with. So for me, it was about trying to start reporting about why we can't tell you. And really give the public the information that they need to know and can know about this case at this stage. But just to get into a bit of the weeds of why we are um hamstrung on giving much detail away.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, Connor, is this a bit of a running joke in Cairns?

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it, it is a little bit. And when you do go on social media and you, you see the, the name repeated and you. Now it's almost the, the, the phrase, high profile Queensland man. It rolls off the tongue locally and lots of people. Say it in reference and I do wonder if we need to kind of change the the moniker that we're using sometimes, but it everybody is aware of who it is at this point. Earlier, they weren't, but now that there is a suppression order, it's almost created, it's expanded the vacuum, if you know what I mean, that it's just getting wider and wider and it's become its own little entity, this suppression order and the non-publication order about

• 24:06Speaker 03

  this mystery man that everybody knows who it is, but we're not allowed to talk about.

• 24:09Speaker 05

  Connor, I mean, the interesting part about all of this that we're kind of losing in this story is that this all started with an extortion case. That's been overshadowed, obviously, by the suppression and the conversation we're having here. But where's that case up to?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  You're right, it has been absolutely overshadowed. I'm expecting this back in court very soon for a directions hearing. And that's where the defence, the prosecution and the magistrate decide where the case will go next. Now, I'm not trying to preempt the outcome, but just for information purposes for the audience, that could be anything from charges are continuing, charges could be dropped, it could be a plea, it could be a trial date set, or it could now be sent to the domestic violence courtroom, generally closed to the public, to the media. It may also go up to a higher court, to a district court, supreme court. And if it goes to something like the domestic violence court, we may not know what happens to it. I am really curious about how it will be treated in the

• 25:05Speaker 03

  courtroom on the day, and if there might be a reset on the original suppression order, and if there is an outcome on the case brought by the media organisations later on. And indeed, if the whole suppression order situation might interfere with that case, especially if it does go to trial, and when things go to trial, we need a jury. And if everybody on a jury is aware of what we're talking about, that can compromise the jury's decision.

• 25:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. The risks of prejudicing a jury, compromising juries are all the things that we are considering and we're thinking about when we are doing this kind of reporting. Grace, what are some of the relevant dates and how's this unfolding in the next little while?

• 25:43Speaker 06

  We do have a few dates coming up involving the content maker. The big day though for us as the media is Friday, the 31st of July, and that's when this challenge will take place in the Supreme Court and a judge will hear arguments from barristers representing the media, the defendant, and then Queensland Police. And they will sort of fight it out as to why this suppression order should be lifted or not lifted, and then a judge will decide the future of this case essentially and how we can report it.

• 26:19Speaker 05

  Either a very busy day or a very quiet day for all of us following that hearing. Very interested to see how this unfolds. You know, I'm thinking of the case of Dari at this point. You know, we have this suppression hearing on Friday, the 31st of July. We have the start of Alan Jones's trial the following week. We'll be squeezing episodes in here and there if there's things that we need to update you on. So make sure you're grabbing yourself ABC Listen, best place to keep up to date with all of this. And obviously following ABC News for the latest in Grace and Connor's reporting from this. So you can be kept up to date with all of this. I'm sure if we can reveal this name, we'll be doing it as soon as possible. Connor, Grace, thank you so much for joining us for these episodes.

• 27:02Speaker 05

  It's such a strange story and it's been amazing to have both of you kind of taking us through it into the courtrooms and inside these various machinations.

• 27:09Speaker 06

  Thanks for having us.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  I never really wanted to go to court that day, and it should really be the name of my biography. I never really wanted to go to court that day. The trials and tribulations of a court reporter.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  And look where it's ended up. You're stuck here on the Case of Podcast with Grace and I.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, you've got my phone number now.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  Really appreciate you hanging out with us for this one. We'll pop a copy of Grace and Connor's reporting in the episode description for this one, so you can read some more as well. There's lots of interesting details and of course we'll keep you up to date with all of those hearings. And if we can reveal that name, I'm sure we will.

• 27:48Speaker 05

  The Case Of is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. This episode was reported by Grace Tobin and Conor Byrne and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rawson. Thank you to senior lawyer Anne Flavon for her legal advice for these episodes, also to the Queensland newsroom and to Audio Studios manager, Eric George. This episode was produced on the land of the Gimmoy, Yagura, Turrbal and Warantrae people.