Gayle wins $300,000 over reports

INTERNATIONAL cricketer Chris Gayle has been awarded $300,000 in damages for being defamed by Fairfax Media reports that he exposed himself to a massage therapist.

“The defamation went to the heart of Mr Gayle’s professional life as a respected batsman,” Justice Lucy McCallam ruled in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.

In October last year, a jury of four found Fairfax had not established that Gayle had exposed himself to, and propositioned, masseuse Leanne Russell in the West Indies team’s dressing room during a training session at the 2015 World Cup in Sydney.

The claims were contained in 28 articles in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times in early 2016. The jury found Fairfax was motivated by malice.

In awarding him three quarters of the maximum available for general damages, the judge said Gayle’s evidence on hurt feelings “was surprisingly compelling” and “a particular source of hurt for Mr Gayle was the fact that there were calls for him to be banned from international cricket”.

Gayle said the call for a ban for something he had not done was the most “hurtful thing I’ve ever actually come across in my entire life”.

“The articles attributed him as intentionally acting indecently towards her [Ms Russell],” the judge said.

“I accept that the imputations had particular resonance in cricketing circles, among fans, coaches, officials and players,” she said.

The judge found the articles had been read very widely, and noted Gayle’s evidence that the story “went viral” around the world.

“Having regard to his high profile and popularity as an international cricketer, the nature of the allegation and the fascination of humankind with all things salacious, particularly in relation to people of some celebrity, I accept that it probably did,” Justice McCallam said.

Fairfax says it will challenge the damages award.