Pacific media cyber victim seeks record payout
Title -- 4136 REGION: Pacific media cyber victim seeks record payout
Date -- 2 August 2003
Byline -- None
Origin -- Pacific Media Watch
Source -- Sunday Times Online (Australia), 27/7/3
Copyright -- ST
Status -- Unabridged
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CYBER VICTIM SEEKS PAYOUT
www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,6816180%255E2761,00.html
by Peta Hellard
PERTH (Sunday Times Online/Pacific Media Watch): A Pacific media academic stalked by cyber for the past five years expects to be awarded Australian record damages this week in an Internet defamation case.
Dr Trevor Cullen, now a journalism lecturer at Edith Cowan University, has asked the Supreme Court to award him damages of at least $110,000 in his case against notorious Los Angeles cyber-stalker Bill White.
The Supreme Court already has ruled that Dr Cullen has been defamed.
White began stalking Dr Cullen after being fired in 1997 from Papua New Guinea's Divine Word University (DWU), where both worked as lecturers, for inappropriate behaviour and assaulting a staff member.
Dr Cullen was formerly head of Communication Arts at DWU.
The former business teacher began attacking the small Roman Catholic university, its staff and supporters on websites he created.
He inundated internet forums with derogatory messages and wild claims about sex scandals, corruption, cover-ups and conspiracies.
The 60-year-old turned on Dr Cullen, then working at the University of Queensland, when the academic sent the webmaster of a Pacific Island web forum a letter in July 1998 complaining about White's unfounded views.
His letter was published and within two days, White – who has been diagnosed by a psychologist as highly likely to be suffering from paranoid and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders – had set up a web page in Dr Cullen's name, claiming that he was a pedophile and had committed academic fraud.
"When I came across the web page I felt sick," Dr Cullen said.
White also used the internet to get the email addresses of Dr Cullen's colleagues and superiors at the University of Queensland, bombarding them with messages and accusing them of supporting fraud by allowing Dr Cullen to continue working.
"I had a few lecturers coming to me saying that students had raised concerns about me after coming across the sites, which was distressing and embarrassing," he said.
When Dr Cullen moved to Edith Cowan University in 2001, White's non-stop cyber harassment of his co-workers and bosses continued.
Several victims of White's cyber-stalking campaigns have asked search engine companies to remove his sites but most, including Google, have refused. Laws protect the companies against liability for content.
The companies that sell White the names of his websites say they cannot take back a name, even if it belongs to someone he has been found to have defamed, unless there is a legal judgment against White in the US.
Dr Cullen said that had been a major factor in his decision to take the case to court in Perth.
He planned to use his damages payout to fund the process of having the Supreme Court ruling recognised by US courts.
Other reports:
* Professor John Henningham's website on Bill White's cyberstalking activities:
www.billwhitecyberstalker.com
* Steve Hymon's expose of Bill White in the Los Angeles Times:
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cyber15jun15,1,3842460.story?coll=la-headlines-california-manual
* Café Pacific's expose of Bill White:
www.asiapac.org.fj/cafepacific/resources/aspac/billwhite3.html
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