A News Corp reporter failed to include a Victorian Liberal MP’s statement that allegations about the party’s deputy leader Sam Groth’s relationship with his wife were “nothing more than a political hit job” in a story, lawyers for the couple say.
The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT), reporter Stephen Drill and Herald Sun editor Sam Weir are being sued in the federal court by Brittany Groth – in the first test of new laws for serious invasions of privacy – and by Sam Groth, for defamation over a series of articles published in July.
The articles allege the couple met at a tennis club in suburban Melbourne and started a sexual relationship when Brittany was 16 or 17 and Sam was 23 or 24 and working as her coach, according to court documents.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
In its defence, filed in the federal court earlier this month, the News Corp paper confirmed it would be using the public interest defence, arguing the allegations could have been “weaponised” by both Sam’s detractors within the Liberal party and Labor ahead of the 2026 state election.
The tabloid also argued its reporting was exempt from the new privacy laws, which allow for damages of up to $478,000, due to the legal protections for journalists.
But in a response filed on Wednesday, lawyers for the Groths said HWT published “at best, gossip, rumour, and irrational conclusions based on scant information” which no reasonable person or journalist would classify as either news or public interest reporting.
They allege that on 30 June, a month before publication of the first report, Drill contacted the Liberal MP for Brighton, James Newbury, informing him he was working on a story “about Sam and Brittany having commenced their relationship illegally because she was underage and he was her coach”.
According to the Groths’ lawyers, Newbury told Drill he did not believe the allegations were true and would go on the record to say they were “nothing more than a political hit job from inside the party room that was not based on fact but an untruthful smear”.
But Newbury’s statement was not included in the article.
The Groths’ lawyers said Newbury is referred to as “Confidential Source 6” in HWT’s defence, who told Drill “that story is not true”.
In its defence, HWT argued the conversation was further proof senior Liberal members were “already aware of concerns having been raised regarding the circumstances in which Sam commenced a romantic relationship with Brittany”.
HWT claims in the defence that in late 2024 and mid-2025 there were concerns within the party about when the Groths’ relationship started, the “propriety of Sam having commenced that relationship, whether Sam may have committed a criminal offence when he commenced the relationship”.
They argue there were fears “such matters might be weaponised against the Liberal party by its political opponents, and whether in all the circumstances Sam’s position as deputy leader of the Liberal party represented a risk or liability to the prospects of electoral success”, the defence said.
It said HWT first received information from a “a confidential source who works in Victorian state politics” in late 2024 that there were concerns Brittany might have been underage when the couple’s relationship began.
The defence also shows Herald Sun deputy editor Chris Tinkler was involved in researching the story, with documents saying that Tinkler obtained a Facebook photo on 17 December from an unnamed source showing Sam and Brittany in May 2012, attending a school formal as a couple. She was 18 at the time.
The defence also includes photos of the couple’s trip to Bali for Brittany’s 18th birthday in April 2012 and previous interviews with Tennis Channel in 2017 and in July 2024 with Herald Sun reporter Mitch Clarke, in both of which the Groths said they met at the tennis club.
In the Herald Sun interview, Groth said he added Brittany as a Facebook friend immediately after meeting her.
The defence said Tinkler had also spoken to a Labor party source who said that two of its MPs were aware that Brittany might have been underage when her romantic relationship with Sam began, and that in that source’s view, “what he has done is really not appropriate”.
The case is scheduled to face its first case management hearing in the federal court on 30 October.
