“I felt assaulted, I felt harassed, I felt humiliated and harassed, I felt disgusted,” Edwards said, fighting back tears.
“I was disappointed because I thought by filing a civil dispute my case would be decided in a court of law, not on some horrible trashy TV show that made me look like a crazy person.”
Oscar the cavoodle photographed in April 2018.Credit:james alcock
Edwards had been a lector, a junior lawyer undergoing mentor training, at the time of the broadcast. He said he couldn’t sleep, developed an eating disorder and had to take medication just to get out of his room, meaning he didn’t come back on camera for about ten months.
She said she hoped to be a prosecutor and had been given readers with a Crown prosecutor to work on high-profile cases, but she was so stressed and overwhelmed that she couldn’t focus on reading and understanding the documents.
Edwards said that when he was able to return to work, he discovered that lawyers, solicitors and clients were referencing his description in a current affair.
Charging
“It affected every facet of my life,” Edwards said. “He was everywhere. It was horrible. He swallowed me whole.”
He said that at a particularly low point he contemplated taking his own life, after receiving a deluge of abusive comments online and receiving a phone call in which a stranger told him: “If you don’t give me the dog back, I’ll kill you.” ”.
Edwards said she was extremely hurt by the thousands of comments about a current affairThe social media accounts of , some of which called her a “hateful fat” and a “thieving rag”, saying she should “take a bullet” and receive a knife to the back of the head.
“[They said] It was an embarrassment to the law and I was using my position to get my way,” Edwards said. “Reading the things people were saying about me, I thought I would never be a lawyer again, and I worked very hard to become a lawyer.”
Edwards was shown a message sent by a current affair Journalist Steve Marshall in late 2021, when he threatened libel prosecution, where Marshall wrote to Gillespie: “I don’t want to give Edwards an inch here.”
“I thought he was a sociopath for saying that,” Edwards said. “Not having empathy for what he had done to me, and putting me down…it was hard for me to understand that he would say that.”
Edwards argues that Nine defamed her by making numerous incorrect claims, including that she is “a thief who stole Oscar the cavoodle”, exploited the dog for her own financial gain, and deliberately delayed court proceedings.
Nine denies that Edwards was smeared on the broadcasts. If the court disagrees, the broadcaster has argued the defenses of truth and contextual truth.
The hearing continues.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the biggest and most interesting stories, analysis and insights of the day. sign up here.