Embattled former AFL club president Luke Sayers has lost his bid to have a defamation case over a lewd photo heard in private.
Cate Sayers wanted a Victorian Supreme Court jury to decide whether her estranged husband, a former Carlton Football Club president and member of its board, defamed her.
She claims he did so in a statutory declaration, which accused her of accessing his X account, posting a photograph of his genitalia in January 2025 and tagging a female executive at Bupa.
The document was sworn by Mr Sayers in the weeks after the controversial post, which was quickly deleted, as the AFL and Carlton conducted investigations.
In May, Mr Sayers, a former PwC chief executive, applied to have the case transferred to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia where the matter would be heard in private.
But Supreme Court Justice Andrew Watson on Wednesday rejected Mr Sayers' application, finding the Supreme Court was the more appropriate venue for a defamation claim.
"This court has a long history of trying defamation proceedings," the judge wrote in his published reasons.
"There is no doubt that judges of the Family Court would have the requisite skills and experience to decide a defamation matter in that court but there are, in my view, features of this case which mean that it is not more appropriate to transfer this proceeding to that jurisdiction."
An important function of defamation proceedings was giving defendants the chance to vindicate their reputations, the judge said.
"The Family Court has strict provisions restricting publication regarding the course of proceedings in that court," Justice Watson said.
"I accept Cate’s submission that those provisions sit at odds with the vindication function that a defamation trial would ordinarily serve."
Mrs Sayers had sought for the case to be heard before a jury but Justice Watson rejected her application as well.
He found the hearing should be heard by a judge-alone.
"Apart from her reliance on her claim in defamation, Cate provides no positive basis on which she asserts the discretion to order a jury trial should be exercised in her favour," the judge said.
The case is expected to be heard before a judge in November.
