A newspaper article with a headline about a witness seeing a ghost conveyed the meaning that she was \"crazy\", a defamation jury has been told.
Therese Mallik has launched an action in the NSW Supreme Court against Hunter Valley Independent Newspapers Pty Ltd, publishers of the Cessnock Independent, and its managing director, proprietor and editor, William McGeown.
Ms Mallik's lawyer, David Caspersonn, told the jury on Thursday that the article meant \"she has got something wrong with her mentally, she's mad - if I can put it colloquially - she has got a screw loose, she has lost her marbles\".
The front page article, published in the Cessnock Independent on October 2005, was headlined: \"Witness sees a ghost over Cremator\".
It refers to a Cessnock Land and Environment Court hearing about the possibility of increasing the number of bodies burnt at the St Patricks crematorium in the Hunter region.
Mr Caspersonn said the article referred to Ms Mallik as the \"leader of the Nulkaba Residents Group against the cremator\", adding that in her evidence to the environment court \"she claimed to have seen a ghostlike figure in the clouds\".
He said the publication conveyed three defamatory imputations, including that she was \"demented\" and her evidence had been \"worthless, absurd and lacking in any credibility\".
Louisa Evans, for the publishers and proprietor, asked the jury to find \"that it is a storm in a teacup\".
\"I submit this woman was giving evidence in a court case and it was taken seriously by the defendants,\" she said.
Ms Evans said the article referred to a \"ghostlike figure\", which was not an imaginary thing but something tangible.
Mr Caspersonn said the \"witness sees a ghost over cremator\" was the hook to the story, adding that the article was not a cartoon, or in a gossip column, but on the front page. 10th May 2007
