'So overwhelming': Montanna Geyer speaks out after court case

Montanna Geyer says the defamatory Facebook post which she recently won a court case over ‘could have ruined my life’.

The daughter of former NRL great Mark Geyer won a defamation case against 24-year-old Fouad Ghosn, who she sued after the Western Sydney man claimed she was ‘the bird in the Tyrone May video’ on an NRL memes page he operated on Facebook.

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After a week-long trial in November, a four-man jury found Geyer had been defamed in six ways, with Judge Judith Gibson ordering Mr Ghosn to pay $125,000 in damages.

Speaking to host Ray Hadley on 2GB, Geyer described her ordeal as ‘overwhelming’ and said she had wanted to send a message that it was not acceptable to say things online that were not true.

“You can’t just post false things online about people, it can ruin people’s lives,” she said.

“It could have easily ruined mine.

“It was so overwhelming. I hated being up there trying to defend myself for something that wasn’t true.

“I would never want anyone else to be in that position.”

Geyer said securing financial compensation was not her primary motivation for pursuing legal action, saying what she wanted most of all was an apology from Mr Ghosn.

No such apology has been forthcoming.

“I didn’t want money, I didn’t want anything else, I just wanted him to own up for what he had done and say, ‘Look, I made a mistake’,” she said.

Judge critical of NRL meme page owner in court

Geyer sued Fouad Ghosn in the NSW District Court over a March 2019 post identifying her as "the bird" in an intimate video illegally filmed by Penrith Panthers back Tyrone May.

"The contents of this post were completely false from beginning to end," Judge Judith Gibson said on Wednesday.

"However, that did not stop the post from going 'viral', just like the video and the Tyrone May scandal. The defendant's post was liked and shared by multiple sites."

While the offending image and text was taken down within days, Mr Ghosn used each request to apologise and retract the false claim to make "further defamatory and insulting remarks in the most public way that he could", namely the page followed by 300,000 Facebook accounts

"This was high-handed conduct and lacking in bona fides," Judge Gibson said.

"He well knew that the plaintiff had no connection with the video and, instead of acknowledging his error, he took refuge in insult and invective.

"It would be hard to find a clearer case of aggravating conduct."

With AAP

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