A bitter legal fight between former Carlton president Luke Sayers and his wife over a lewd photo is set to play out in the public eye after Victoria’s Supreme Court ruled the defamation case should stay in its jurisdiction.
A photo of Mr Sayers’s penis was posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account in January 2025, leading him to step down as Carlton president.
Mr Sayers denied posting the image, saying his account was “hacked”.
A year later, his wife Cate sued him for defamation in the Supreme Court, alleging Mr Sayers provided a statutory declaration to AFL investigators falsely stating that she was responsible for accessing his X account and publishing the picture.
Mr Sayers applied to have the case transferred to the Federal Circuit and Family Court, a move that would effectively prevent media reporting of the case.
However on Wednesday, Justice Andrew Watson dismissed the application, saying the Supreme Court was the more appropriate venue to decide the case.
A judge-only trial could take place in November.
“This court has a long history of trying defamation proceedings. The first reported defamation cases in this jurisdiction date from 1856, four years after the court was established,” he wrote.
“Defamation matters have rarely, if ever, been conducted in conjunction with family law proceedings in the Family Court.“
Ms Sayers’s legal team argued the case should stay in the Supreme Court and be put before a jury to decide at a trial.
The case will be heard in the Victorian Supreme Court after a bid by Mr Sayers to have the case moved was rejected. (ABC News: Shane Willner-Browne)
In court documents they said Ms Sayers was seeking “to obtain vindication and to restore her reputation”.
The photograph was posted on Mr Sayers’s X account on January 8, 2025, while he was in Italy with his wife and their daughters.
The image was quickly deleted, but not before it had been screenshotted by X users.
In court documents, Mr Sayers claimed the post was made while he was in the shower.
A 2025 inquiry launched by the AFL cleared Mr Sayers of breaching AFL rules, and found, on the available evidence, that access to his account “was compromised”.
“I deeply regret that many other people including my family, friends and colleagues, and my football club, have been caught up in this matter,” Mr Sayers said as he stepped down from Carlton.
Mr Sayers is a former chief executive of PwC and was in charge when the firm was embroiled in a tax scandal after a staff member misused confidential government information.
‘Tabloid in the very worst sense’
Wednesday’s decision means the showdown between Mr Sayers and his wife will play out in full view of the public in a Supreme Court case and in a state where AFL-related stories regularly make front page news.
Already, text messages between the couple have been aired in court documents and republished by the media, outlining the deep rift in the marriage.
“The publicity which has surrounded this proceeding … has been salacious,” Mr Sayers’s barrister Matt Collins KC said last month.
“At times it’s been gleeful. It’s often tabloid in the very worst sense of that word.“
Luke and Cate Sayers pictured at the Brownlow Medal ceremony in September 2023. (AAP: James Ross)
After Mr Sayers quit Carlton and issued a public statement his wife accused him of implying that she was responsible for the X post.
“The world thinks I posted it. Thanks,” she wrote, during an angry exchange.
“You saved yourself and again dumped me right in it as the person who accessed your account. Read the media narrative.“
“Cate that is not true,” Mr Sayers replied. “Nobody I know thinks you had anything to do with it. I was hacked.”
Ms Sayers argues her husband made numerous false claims in his statutory declaration, including information about her mental health and sexual history and that she was residing in the same apartment as Mr Sayers at the time of the controversial X post.
She also argued the AFL investigation was inadequate because she was never interviewed, nor was Mr Sayers’s phone forensically examined.
In response, Mr Sayers denied leaking details of his statutory declaration to the media and accused his wife of accessing his phone in March 2025 and viewing and copying confidential material.
The pair enlisted two of the country’s leading defamation barristers with Sue Chrysanthou SC acting for Ms Sayers and Dr Collins representing Mr Sayers.
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