Amber Harrison vowed ‘reign of terror’ over Tim Worner, but Seven wins bid to have injunction extended
Amber Harrison vowed “I’m out to get him. This is war” and planned a “reign of terror” against her former lover, Seven West Media CEO Tim Worner, emails tendered in the NSW Supreme Court reveal.
The emails came to light as Seven successfully sought an extension to the injunction banning Harrison from sharing confidential internal documents and speaking to journalists about her ongoing battles with the network.
The extension of the injunction came despite a bid by News Corp’s Daily Telegraph and Fairfax Media to have it lifted in order to allow journalists to interview Harrison.
Barrister Andrew Bell, appearing for Seven, said that Harrison hatched a plan to keep and use the confidential information in contravention of an agreement with Seven.
In one email she declared she was on a path to “Destroying your idiot boss,” while in another she celebrated gathering enough information to work with, saying: “I’m just powerful now I’ve got everything. Everything. Game on”.
The network used an interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Annette Sharp, conducted last year but not published until early February, as an example of how Harrison had deliberately set out to ignore the agreement that would have seen her paid more than $420,000 after her relationship with Worner, and her employment with Seven, had ended.
“On the very eve of the first deed Ms Harrison is assembling, it would appear, for her own malicious purpose,” Bell said, noting it was done with “malice and forethought”.
Bell described Harrison’s motivation as the “intent to cause damage and ongoing harm to my clients”.
Seeking to have the injunction lifted, Harrison’s counsel James Catlin said his client had been left defenceless agains the might of Seven and the attacks by former Victorian premier and current Seven West Media board member, Jeff Kennett.
Catlin said Seven had used the injunction just two days before its results were released to create an environment where it could “launch a full-scale media campaign against her”, saying Seven was preparing to “let rip with both barrels”.
He described it as the billionaire media proprietor and the ex-premier against an unemployed woman they had branded a thief.
Catlin said that Harrison had respected the confidentiality of her agreement with Seven until the group stopped paying her.
However, Seven rejected the claim, saying the network stopped payments after she breached the deed of agreement by not handing over confidential documents.
Catlin said fears by Seven that Harrison had more confidential documents, which would be shared if the order were removed, were false.
He called on Seven to identify the specific documents it feared Harrison might release, noting that all that were left are “textual exchanges between lovers”.
Bell said that Seven was not seeking to gag media coverage of the matter, and that journalists were free to report on the case and access affidavits filed with the court.
Earlier in the day Catlin handed over a USB containing more than 900 pages of documents Seven had demanded to see as part of the case.
The court also agreed to suppress the names of two women who had been previously named by Harrison in her complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Justice McDougall will publish his reasons on Wednesday and the matter has been adjourned until March 3.
topics
Amber Harrison
court case
Daily Telegraph
Fairfax Media
injunction
News Corp
NSW Supreme Court
Seven West Media
sex scandal
Tim Worner
#TeamAmber
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I think this is a disgrace…I have been working with media people in Sydney for years and know this kind of thing goes on. I have no doubt he [edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] and had an affair but money wins all the time – she is against the big guns……
I hope she will eventually sell her story and get the big bucks from Channel 9…
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“I have been working with media people in Sydney for years and know this kind of thing goes on. I have no doubt he [edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]”
Now that’s what I call irony.
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#jobsfortheboys
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Would you ever want this woman working in your business? No thank you. I hope she stays unemployed a long long time.
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Found out now for the person she is. Happy when only her side of the story went to the Press…again and again and again. Now we are hearing of threats and deviousness, it puts new light on the whole sorry saga. There is something very deranged about a person who wants to “destroy” another. In this instance #teamJeff, #teamKerry, #team7.
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Suppose you thought the bunny boiler in ‘Fatal Attraction’ was in the right as well… she was persistent too.
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