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The Chaser's Bestiality Defamation Case Headed To Jury

Staff Writer

Plenty of ABC vs News Ltd going on

The Chaser's Andrew Hansen (left), and Chris Taylor at the Screen Music Awards
The Chaser's Andrew Hansen (left), and Chris Taylor at the Screen Music Awards

The Australian columnist and Sky News presenter Chris Kenny is one step closer to wining his defamation battle against The Chaser's The Hamster Decides after a court ruling yesterday.

Kenny is taking host Andrew Hansen, and the show's production company Giant Dwarf, to court after a segment in the show last year depicted Kenny having sex with a dog. According to Fairfax, Kenny filed a claim that said the ABC program had made three defamatory allegations, all of which the ABC has opposed.

Yesterday a judge in a preliminary hearing ruled that a “reasonable viewer” would not believe that a comedy show like The Hamster Decides would be making legitimate accusations of bestiality, but upheld suggestions that the ABC had portrayed him as a “low, contemptible and disgusting person” and “so disgusting that he deserved to be portrayed as a person who has sex with dogs.”

Kenny – an outspoken advocator of ABC funding cuts – will now have his case heard before a four-person jury who will make a call on the defamation claim.

Meanwhile, Kenny today has had further run-ins with the ABC after WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlam refused to be interviewed in a Twitter back and forth. Ludlam claimed he didn't want to go on the show because “nobody watches it” before ABC presenter Mark Colvin also had his say.