A West Australian man who was incorrectly identified by the Seven Network as allegedly being involved in the abduction of Cleo Smith has launched defamation proceedings against the news organisation.
Lawyers for Terrance Flowers, a 27-year-old Nyamal man who lives in the town of Karratha, on Tuesday filed a case in the WA supreme court after Seven mistakenly identified him in a series of broadcasts, articles and social media posts as having been a suspect in the case.
Flowers uses his mother’s maiden name, Kelly, on Facebook. Police had arrested 36-year-old Terence Darrell Kelly, whose name is spelled differently, at the time.
In a statement of claim filed on Tuesday, lawyers for the 27-year-old said Seven had obtained “four full screen colour photographs” from Flowers’ Facebook account “without his consent” and used them across its broadcast and social media accounts.
“Given the public interest in the disappearance of Cleo Smith throughout Australia, it was the natural and probable consequence of the publication … that the allegations made about Flowers in that publication would be widely republished,” the claim states.
It alleges Flowers had “been gravely injured in his character and reputation, and has suffered substantial hurt, distress and embarrassment and has and will continue to suffer loss and damage”.
Seven incorrectly identified Flowers as a suspect in the case in broadcasts and an online article, tweet and Facebook post on 3 November. The social media posts contained the heading “PICTURED: the man accused of abducting Cleo Smith”.
After it became aware of the mistake, Channel Seven issued an apology stating the images had been removed “promptly”.
“Earlier on Wednesday 7NEWS wrongly showed images of a man that were incorrectly labelled as the person under arrest over the disappearance of Cleo Smith,” it read. “These were removed promptly but 7NEWS apologises for the error.”
Lawyers for Flowers said in a statement that publication of his name and photo in connection to Smith’s high-profile disappearance made him “the subject of hate around the nation and the world and resulted in him being hospitalised with a severe panic attack”.
“He had nothing to do with it and was never a suspect in the case,” his lawyers said.
“Mr Flowers recently became a father and like everyone else throughout Australia, and particularly being a parent himself, he was hoping for Cleo’s safe return. Being identified as responsible for her abduction and disappearance was extremely distressing to him and his family.”
Flowers is being represented by the high-profile Sydney defamation specialist Sue Chrysanthou, SC, who has previously represented the former federal attorney general Christian Porter in his case against the ABC and actor Geoffrey Rush against the Daily Telegraph.
Filing the case in the WA supreme court means lawyers for Flowers did not need to wait the 28 days agreed to by other states as part of nation-wide reforms to defamation laws.
The nationally agreed changes to the laws, which have been passed in other states but not WA, means lawyers must send a concerns notice and wait 28 days from the date it is received before filing a case. Seven was contacted for comment.
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