Luke Sayers could have survived the scandal – but one critical mistake laid bare in court made everything worse: WAYNE FLOWER

When Luke Sayers stepped down as boss of the Carlton Football Club, he hoped his embarrassing ordeal was over. 

The ‘d**k pic’ scandal had claimed his job, but he had largely vindicated himself with the club, AFL and most of Melbourne’s die-hard football community. 

On January 18 last year, Sayers told his children his time at the Blues was over. 

The decision came 10 days after a post of his limp penis, sent from his X account and tagging a female BUPA executive, went live and then quickly vanished. 

His wife Cate Sayers had been living abroad in Italy when the scandal broke. 

Sayers immediately claimed he hadn’t posted the image. 

His wife was initially supportive, helping her husband draft a press release she hoped would clear his name. 

Sayers had consistently informed Cate that it was his belief that his X account had been ‘hacked’.

But on January 19, Cate received a text message while in Italy from a prominent Melbourne reporter from the Herald Sun stating, ‘I’ve heard that Luke has been saying to people that it was posted by you.’

The ex-PwC Australia chief executive had just jumped from the frying pan into the fire and was about to find out in the hardest possible way.

Anyone in media circles will tell you scandals come and go. 

Just ask former AFL greats Brendan Fevola and Wayne Carey – or even Ben Cousins. 

Melbourne’s media is not only fickle, it has a tradition of being very forgiving of male sporting identities caught up in sticky situations. 

If Sayers thought he could wait out the storm, he was probably right, but a new storm front was about to hit him. 

And hit him it did. 

That text from the Herald Sun enraged Cate and she let Sayers know it loud and clear.

Now everyone knows this – because it is now all part of bitter proceedings taking place at the Supreme Court of Victoria.

For all of the Victorian justice system’s faults – and Sayers might suggest this is among them – the media has a right to request access to documents before that court.

Cate launched proceedings in January accusing her husband of defaming her, breaching confidence over confidential information, and committing a ‘common law tort of invasion of privacy’ through the publication of a statutory declaration.

The nuts of it all is that Cate alleges Sayers wrongly blamed her for posting the photo to the Blues and AFL.

After receiving that Herald Sun text, Sayers scrambled to assure his wife that he had not suggested to any person that she was responsible for the publication of the X post.

To calm the waters, he proceeded to draft a media release, with Cate’s assistance, addressing the rumours that she was responsible for the X post and announcing his resignation from the presidency of Carlton. 

Cate believed this move would bring an end to the AFL investigation and media interest in the matter.

By January 22, Cate was in Italy when word of her husband’s resignation went public.

In layman’s terms, she thought Sayers had kicked her under the bus to save his skin. 

Sayers had packed his bags and was on his way to Pisa – a historic city in Tuscany, central Italy, globally renowned for its iconic Leaning Tower – when Cate bit back. 

That carefully crafted statement had gone off-script at the very last line, Cate raged. 

‘Everyone now thinks I posted it “someone who has access to his account”,’ she texted him. 

Sayers had just arrived at the airport and was scrambling to check in as the text exchange continued. 

He tried to convince Cate, as well as anyone can on a text message while hauling luggage through an airport, that she was in the clear. 

‘No luke – read the media You are once again cleared – you looked after yourself well but your media people have left it on me – thanks,’ Cate fired back. 

‘Babe no no no….,’ Sayers responded. 

‘It couldn’t have been clearer in the statement.’

You’d imagine Sayers might have been scurrying for a $20 airport pint as the exchange continued. 

‘No. You didn’t say a hacker or an unrelated person to you had access. The world thinks I posted it. Thanks,’ Cate continued.

Sayers picked up the phone and called his wife in an effort to douse the fire, but she wasn’t answering.  

‘I have tried to call. I love you. It breaks my heart how you are feeling. Nobody we know thinks in any way you did it, that’s all that matters,’ he wrote. 

‘We must both ignore the media and restart as if it’s 2020. We are no longer in the public eye babe.’

It is now that public eye lapping up the private destruction of the Sayers’ former marriage. 

On Wednesday, Supreme Court of Victoria Justice Andrew Watson threw out Sayers’ application to transfer the matter to the secretive Federal Circuit and Family Court.

Sayers had hoped that moving the matter there would halt the stream of reports based off the ongoing court action. 

Anyone who has had any dealings with lawyers knows they’re in for a big financial whack the minute one is engaged. 

Defamation lawyers are at the top of the pile when it comes to creating large invoices.

Sayers has enlisted Matt Collins KC while is wife has brought in Sue Chrysanthou SC.

A King’s Counsel like Mr Collins is unlikely to step into court for anything less than $10,000-$12,000. 

Experts suggest Sayers bid to have the matter moved from the Supreme Court could have already cost him at least $100,000 in legal costs. 

Cate is also racking up the bills and suffered her own loss in the Supreme Court when her bid to have the matter heard by a jury was also dismissed. 

Justice Watson refused to order either party to take responsibility for their opponent’s costs because he thought no one had actually won the application. 

‘Neither party has succeeded in their application,’ he wrote in his judgment.

‘It would seem there should be no order as to costs.

‘Unless any party contends differently within three days of the date these reasons are handed down by filing submissions of no more than two pages in length, I intend to make no order as to costs.’

It’s hard though to see the downside in the judge’s decision for Cate apart from the financial slug.

She’s made her intentions with the court action clear. 

Vindication. Pure and simple. 

Cate is a philanthropist, best known (before this) as the founder and director of the Inclusion Foundation, a charity focused on promoting inclusion and opportunities for people with Down syndrome through dance, arts and community programs. 

It’s not about the money for her. 

That is made abundantly clear from the documents already before the court. 

‘The purpose of commencing these proceedings in Victoria was to obtain vindication and to restore her reputation in the eyes of the public, and particularly in the eyes of those who shunned her following the publication of the Statutory Declaration and the extent of publication,’ her solicitors at Giles George told the court via an affidavit.   

‘Cate suffered serious harm to her reputation and significant harm and distress and hurt to feelings including social isolation and avoidance from friends, acquaintances and social circles in Melbourne, and she was the subject of rumour and gossip as the person who was responsible for posting the X post.’

Had Sayers come out and publicly apologised for what was written in that statutory declaration, what is happening right now might never have happened.

With the benefit of hindsight, a reasonable observer might see his failure to apologise to his wife as a critical error. 

As her solicitors went on to state in the cold language of the law: ‘I am further instructed that Cate’s hurt to feelings has been exacerbated by the fact that, despite Luke not relying on the defence of justification pursuant to s 25 of the Act, he has never offered to publicly apologise for making the false allegations in the Statutory Declaration of and concerning Cate.’

Sayers maintains he has nothing to apologise for.

This fact was made abundantly clear on Christmas Eve last year when he returned fire and set in motion a legal drama that will now play out to its bitter end in public. 

‘Our client did not defame your client. He rejects the allegations set out in the Letter,’ a letter from his lawyer stated.

A judge alone will determine if he is right. The public will make its own assessment. Many seem to have already.