High-profile journalist and diversity advocate Antoinette Lattouf has won her court case against a 61-year-old man who sent her a racist email, highlighting the need for deterrance of online abuse.
The Port Macquarie Local Court heard that the man, Michael Dean, sent the offensive email to Lattouf on October 10, 2024, which read: “F*** off back to your shithole racist terrorist [sic] country scumbag”.
Dean pleaded guilty and, on Wednesday, Magistrate Georgina Darcy convicted him on the charge of using service to menace/harass/offend.
He is required to stay on good behaviour for 12 months, as well as to provide security of $200 as part of being placed on the Commonwealth Recognisance order. If he complies with these terms, he will be released without sentence.
Magistrate Darcy described Dean’s conduct as “offensive” and said he was “hiding behind a keyboard” and “targeting someone he didn’t even know”.
While Dean is a first-time offender, Magistrate Darcy said there was a need for general deterrence in cases involving online abuse.
“Australia is a diverse country. Most of its citizens are tolerant… [and] people accept that different people are going to have different political views,” she said. “However, the way you have gone about expressing your view towards this victim, whom you didn’t know, and you based your knowledge of her on what was reported in the media is offensive.”
“Clearly, the victim has been distressed and fearful for her safety,” said Magistrate Darcy about Lattouf. “She doesn’t know who you are or what your criminal record was.”
Dean’s defence lawyer Matthew Lindeman told the court that when he sent the email, he was “clearly in an emotional state”.
“It is offensive, calling her those names, I am not defending it at all, therein lies the plea,” Lindeman said. “He has made a mistake, he has pleaded guilty to it.”
Addressing Lindeman about the email’s content, Magistrate Darcy said: “If that’s not racist, I don’t know what is.”
Following Dean’s conviction, Lattouf wrote on Instagram, thanking the NSW Police, in particular the hate crimes unit.
“You believed me. You backed me. You encouraged me to seek justice,” Lattouf wrote, adding that instead of “brushing it off”, the NSW Police told her that “coming forward means others won’t be abused like this”.
Lattouf said she feared that she would simply be told to “just log off” or that the abuse just “comes with the territory of a public job”.
“But my fear wasn’t minimised. I was supported,” she said.
“Online violence is real. It leaves scars. And women bear the brunt of it”.
“Women deserve to be safe. Online. Offline. Everywhere. And when they’re not- they deserve the full force of the law behind them,” Lattouf wrote.
Last month, the fifth Islamophobia in Australia report revealed alarming statistics showing that Islamophobic incidents in Australia have more than doubled in the past two years, with girls and women disproportionately targeted.
Girls and women accounted for three quarters of all incidents, including physical attacks, verbal harassment and rape threats, and they were a third more likely to be physically attacked than boys and men.
In another court case, Lattouf is currently suing the ABC for unfair dismissal in the Federal Court. Lattouf alleged the ABC told her she breached the organisation’s social media policy by sharing a post from Human Rights Watch about the war in Gaza. The ABC denies her employment was wrongfully terminated.