Mitigation
825 Mr Pesutto made a submission (at RCS [45.1]) that any award of damages should be mitigated by reference to certain matters, including:
(a) “the substantial truth of various imputations and the particulars set out in Annexure A of his Defence, already discussed in the Contextual Truth section [of the RCS]”;
(b) his “repeated public statements that he did not believe Mrs Deeming to be a neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, or anything of similar substance or effect”;
(c) “the fact that Mrs Deeming made, caused or acceded to public statements falsely asserting that Mr Pesutto has said that she is a Nazi or has Nazi associations or is a Nazi sympathiser, thereby causing or contributing to the damage to her reputation…”;
(d) Mrs Deeming’s “prior damaged reputation”; and
(e) “such other evidence as is properly admitted at trial”.
826 As is apparent from my reasons, I do not accept the propositions that underpin them. I do not accept Mr Pesutto’s pleaded imputations (other than in the case of the EMD where they were similar to Mrs Deeming’s) were carried. It is true that Mrs Deeming was wrong to say that Mr Pesutto had said that she was a “Nazi”, but I have found that he did say, for example, that she associates with Nazis and it is difficult to see what additional damage Mrs Deeming could have done to her own reputation in that regard. And she did not have a relevant “prior damaged reputation”, as I have explained.
827 As to (e), nothing of significance in the light of my earlier conclusions was identified.