What started as a "personal dispute" between former soup kitchen organiser Ebony and Leah Potter has concluded with a Personal Violence Order granted against the comedian in Darwin local court yesterday.
Appearing before the registrar with supporters, and clearly emotional over the ordeal, the protected person put forward an affidavit, which has not been viewed by this publication.
Potter was called in the court house, but recorded as a non-appearance.
The registrar said the process server was unable to speak with Potter at the address provided, but placed a phone call to someone who identified themselves as Leah Potter and requested that the documents be emailed to her.
Representing herself in court, Ebony told the registrar: "I would like a personal violence order primarily for her to stop defaming me and communicating negative things about me."
Ebony said the last post to Facebook about her was by Potter on 29th August. This publication has been unable to locate the post.
Ebony: "As you would have gathered from the affidavit, I did some fundraising for the Sunset Soup Kitchen (SSK) in November last year. I raised $8,000.
"During that time I was looking after the SSK, we spent about $4,000.
"In around March, we got into a disagreement, a personal disagreement, and she basically blocked me from the page, and from the service, and from coordinating all that stuff."
"Since then, I've tried to either refund the money, or give it over to the people who are running it at present.
"Following that, she sent threats to me saying 'you're not allowed to do that. You have to give it to me basically, because I look after it.
"SSK is not an incorporated body. I don't have the bank details. I don't have any accountability to be able to say that the monies owed to her, will go to her.
"So I have been waiting for the [inaudible] of her to stop communicating about me online to people who are clients of mine, that I have a positive reputation of."
Registrar: "Do you have a need to have any direct communication with Ms Potter?"
Ebony: "No. What I'm seeking is the ability to be able to refund the money and have her to stop talking about me."
Registrar: "All I can do on a personalised restraining order application is make orders that essentially restrain her conduct. And it's primarily online?"
Ebony: "Yes. So it's online. It's via facebook pages. She's got two pages over five or 10 thousand people on there."
Registrar: "So if I restrict her from posting, commenting, making defamatory comments; any of those sorts of things, against you, online, is there any direct contact by phone?"
Ebony: "There has been a number of emails that I've received, but I haven't received anything in two or three months."
Registrar: "If you need to refund some money, are there other people within the organisation that can contact you about that?"
Ebony: "Yes. And I've put forward since the disagreement into the people who put the fundraising through, to get in contact with me and let me know."
Registrar: "As long as there's a mode. If there's something you need to finalise with an organisation that you can do so without Ms Potter needing to be involved, in a situation which would then cause her to breach.
"What I'm contemplating doing, is making an order that she's not to communicate with you. And further, an order that restrains her from publicly commenting about you or posting about you or naming you or discussing you or any of those things online.
"And that seems to be, as I understand it, the extent of it? We're not talking about orders for her not to damage your property or approach your house. It's the online conduct, and the contact?"
Ebony: "Yes. The main concern has been the online comments."
Registrar: "These are the orders I [inaudible]. For a period of 12 months, the defendant is restrained from contacting or attempting to contact the applicant directly or indirectly by any means, including phone text or email.
"Additionally, restrained from discussing or referring to you, denigrating or identify the applicant via electronic means in any public forum including social media, and harassing intimidating or verbally harassing the applicant."
Ebony: "My only concern with that your honour is that she has both named me and made reference to me in a way that people can identify me.
"So, if she says the previous organiser that fundraised did 'X' and continues to slander me, will the orders cover that particular situation, because that has happened quite frequently."
- Ebony
Registrar: "Well look; that would be open to interpretation by police, but if she was to say the previous organiser, in a way that identified you, then my thoughts would be that it would be a breach, but it would be a matter for the police to look at the facts and look at whether or not the identification was sufficient to constitute a breach.
"If previous posts were used to discuss you without naming you, then I can indicate that the intention is; that if there is discussion about a previous organiser, that refers to the conduct that you've alleged to have done, or things that you've acknowledged that you have done, or any of those things, and it is in fact a discussion about you, in a way that you are identified if not by name, then that would, in my view, be conduct breaching this order.
"The strength in any order isn't tested until there's an alleged breach, and then it can be ascertained whether a loophole's been found or something of that nature, but the intention is to capture all of that sort of conduct.
"If it's designed to identify you and discuss you, then it constitutes a breach. It would be a matter for the police whether, in relation to the prosecution of a breach, because we know online conduct can be very sneaky, and very difficult to prosecute.
"Hopefully, this order will at least make Ms potter think twice about engaging in any such conduct that might very well have police knocking at her door."
- Registrar
The registrar said that "if there are any issues" before the PVO was served, she should contact police to "let them know that there's an unserved personal violence order, and they can potentially serve it for you."
"It's not enforceable until it's served."
In explaining the process, the registrar said: "To start with it will be the bailiff trying to serve it first. Generally, police don't serve private applications, unless we're at a point where we have no other options.
"If it gets to a point where she's evading service, and we're unable to affect service, then we can engage police."
The registrar was further asked whether the order would be served over the phone or email, to which she explained: "given she's answered and identified herself, I imagine that would be his first port of call."
Coincidentally, both the names "Leah Potter" and "Brent Potter" were defendants/respondents on matters in Darwin local court yesterday at 2pm.
Brent's was in the small claims court, but as we couldn't be at two places at the same time, we decided to report on the big fish.
We are The Mango Inquirer.
