Former Newcastle Herald letters-to-the editor writer Scott Neylon has accused Newcastle Maritime Museum president Bob Cook of sending him "threatening" emails, including one with a picture of Mr Neylon's apartment building in Japan.
Mr Neylon, who declined to be interviewed over the phone, said Mr Cooks' emails were "very concerning" and had impacted his health, causing him to develop shingles.
Mr Cook said he was "attempting to have a dialogue" with Mr Neylon regarding the letters he authored about Mr Cook and the maritime museum.
In his emails to Mr Neylon, Mr Cook includes clips of the Herald investigation into Mr Neylon's letters and his links to City of Newcastle CEO Jeremy Bath, imploring Mr Neylon to explain "inconsistencies".
In his letters, Mr Neylon misspelled his own last name, and also listed residing in multiple Newcastle suburbs over the years when he was actually an expat living in Japan teaching English.
Mr Cook has accused Mr Bath of writing the letters under Mr Neylon's name, which Mr Bath and Mr Neylon deny. A council investigation found there was no evidence Mr Bath wrote the letters.
Since early 2019, Mr Cook and Mr Bath have been at odds, in protracted negotiations, over the future of the maritime museum's collection.
Left with 'little choice'
In an email from the same address he sent his letters to the edtor from, Mr Neylon this week provided the Herald with a statement and seven emails Mr Cook had sent to a different, business email address since July 2023.
"Over the past few months, he has been emailing me every few weeks and is now resorting to threatening me," Mr Neylon said.
"These emails have included threatening to send people to my home, threatening me with court action in Australia and threatening to run a social media campaign within my local community.
"While the rest of Newcastle is fast asleep, Mr Cook has been sitting at his computer for months thinking about me and sending threatening emails.
"At first, I thought it was just weird behavior. But since Christmas Mr Cook has crossed a line in terms of his threats."
He said Mr Cook had left him with "little choice" but to speak out.
"I am now at the point where I am considering police assistance to force Bob Cook to end this campaign of cyber harassment," he said.
"It is quite incredible that I may be forced to take this action when you consider all that I did to upset Mr Cook was write a letter to the Newcastle Herald about him four years ago. I know he has an ego but this is next level stuff."
Mr Neylon wrote two letters to the editor which mention Mr Cook, one in August 2019, and one in July 2023 that was not published. A third letter published in August 2019 was about the maritime museum, but does not mention Mr Cook's name.
'Attempting dialogue'
Mr Cook told the Herald this week he was "attempting to have a dialogue" with Mr Neylon about the letters to the editor written about him and the museum.
He denied his emails to Mr Neylon were threatening and said he stood by everything he said in them.
In his first email, Mr Cook says he is providing Mr Neylon with his email address so "you can contact me directly, instead of needing to write letters".
"I am now offering to clear up any questions you have with me," he said.
In his most recent email to Mr Neylon, on February 1, Mr Cook said he intended "to pursue this matter while ever Jeremy blames you and remains in his highly paid job".
"You have chosen to decline responding to me, making it difficult to believe you are being open, honest and truthful," Mr Cook wrote.
"As a first step, if necessary, my friends in Japan are capable of undertaking a social media based distribution of all the Australian information on your alleged activities, highlighting your behaviour to your local community. You know how this works, and the impact.
"You can very easily terminate this matter by providing to the public or the Australian media verifiable evidence that Jeremy is innocent."
The email before that, on January 30, attached a letter to the editor from Cardiff's Julie Robinson, which said "I reckon a special Australia Day award should have gone to Japan's Scott Neylon for keeping up such a keen interest in home affairs while living so far away".
Mr Cook wrote in that email: "On everyone's mind. Waiting to hear from you."
In an email in July last year, Mr Cook wrote he was "disappointed" to not receive a reply from Mr Neylon and asked if he would advise if he still claimed to have written the letters.
"I will be pursuing this matter and if necessary I will have people come to visit you to record your statement," he wrote.
Mr Neylon said he had received legal advice that Mr Cook may have breached the Telecommunications Act.
"My preference is that he simply stops threatening me rather than the police having to get involved," he said.
Mr Bath said he had exchanged many emails with Mr Cook over the years and said he had "never seen anything remotely like Bob's emails regularly are".
"And now he's decided to bully my friend Scott because of one letter from Scott in the Newcastle Herald," Mr Bath said.
"Bob is threatening to send people to Scott's house, emailing him photos of Scott's house ... and telling Scott that he has friends who are going to start a social media campaign against him.
"It's disgusting."
Letters about Mr Cook
Mr Neylon's first letter to the editor about Mr Cook, in 2019, arrived just hours after Mr Bath met with Mr Cook and other maritime museum committee members, where council gave the group a seven-day ultimatum to hand over the maritime museum collection.
"Let me get this straight. The Maritime Museum went bust, has nowhere to exhibit its collection, nowhere to store its 7500 items, no money to employ professional staff, no money to market the exhibition, and no way of paying off the debts racked up by the old committee?" the letter reads.
"And yet Bob Cook says he's not happy with Council? If I was a part of this group I'd be over at the Council Chambers today with a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates and the world's biggest thank you card. Bob, take the deal while it's on the table."
Mr Neylon contacted the Herald this week via the same personal account from which he sent the letters to the editor, which differed to the email address Mr Cook sent the emails to.
The Herald sent an email to the same address Mr Cook used, in order to verify Mr Neylon's identity, which he replied to with a screenshot of the email he sent to the Herald from his personal account. Mr Neylon also confirmed over the phone that he sent the email raising the issue of Mr Cook's correspondence.
