CELEBRITY photographer Jamie Fawcett has won round one in a legal battle against Fairfax newspapers, with a jury finding yesterday he was defamed by a gossip columnist over the alleged bugging of Nicole Kidman's Sydney home.
The former private detective sued over a January 20 article by Annette Sharp in The Sun-Herald's entertainment section.
In what Fawcett's barrister Bruce McClintock described as a "very nasty and vicious attack", the jury found Sharp imputed that the photographer had tried to intercept Kidman's private conversations and had threatened the actor with his conduct.
Kidman succeeded in placing an interim apprehended violence order on Fawcett in January last year after a listening device was found in bushes across the road from her home at Darling Point, in Sydney's east.
Fawcett later provided a DNA sample to compare to DNA on the listening device. The Supreme Court ruled in October last year there was not enough evidence to prove he had broken electronic surveillance laws.
The jury found yesterday that the column had imputed Fawcett was "a cowboy".
