Last modified on Mon 19 Jul 2021 22.41 EDT
Christian Porter and his high-profile barrister could be forced to pay more than $500,000 in legal fees to a friend of the woman who accused the former attorney general of raping her three decades ago, a court has heard. Porter strenuously denies the allegation.
Porter’s defamation case against the ABC was dropped in May, but a separate case has continued to drag on, and threatens to cost the former attorney general $500,000 in costs.
In May, a high school debating friend of the woman at the centre of the case, Jo Dyer, successfully restrained Porter’s star silk, Sue Chrysanthou SC, from acting in the ABC defamation case over what she said was a conflict of interest arising out of a meeting between the two women in November last year.