A judge has ordered lawyers for colourful Sydney identity Tom Domican to tie court documents to the front gates of John Ibrahim’s clifftop mansion.
Mr Domican is suing Mr Ibrahim and his publisher Pan Macmillan Australia for defamation over the nightclub boss’s best-selling memoir Last King of the Cross.
The 75-year-old claims the book portrayed him as a hitman, a drug dealer and a violent criminal who took part in gang wars in the 1980s.
Mr Domican (pictured) is suing Mr Ibrahim and his publisher Pan Macmillan Australia for defamation over the nightclub boss’s best-selling memoir Last King of the Cross
A judge has ordered lawyers for colourful Sydney identity Tom Domican to tie court documents to the front gates of John Ibrahim’s clifftop mansion (pictured)
Mr Domican’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou on Thursday told the Federal Court attempts to serve Mr Ibrahim with legal papers have been unsuccessful.
Lawyers for Mr Ibrahim said they do not accept service of documents in civil cases, and efforts to deliver the statement of claim to Mr Ibrahim’s home failed, Ms Chrysanthou told the court, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Justice Michael Wigney responded by ordering the documents be placed in a waterproof envelope and ‘affixed to the gate’ of Mr Ibrahim’s Dover Heights home.
He said the case would be held up until Mr Ibrahim received the legal papers, adding the Kings Cross nightclub baron was likely aware of the court case.
Mr Domican claims Mr Ibrahim (pictured) portrayed him as a hitman, a drug dealer and a violent criminal who took part in gang wars in the 1980s
Justice Michael Wigney responded by ordering the documents by placed in a waterproof envelope and ‘affixed to the gate’ of Mr Ibrahim’s Dover Heights home (pictured)
As revealed exclusively by Daily Mail Australia, Mr Domican filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court in July, just days before the first anniversary of the publication of Ibrahim’s book (pictured)
As revealed exclusively by Daily Mail Australia, Mr Domican filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court in July, just days before the first anniversary of the publication of Ibrahim’s book – just under the 12-month deadline for defamation action.
He is seeking aggravated damages and wants the book to be recalled, pulped and republished without any reference to him.
Mr Domican claims a passage in the book defames him by carrying the imputations that he ‘was willing to be hired to kill people other than the lbrahims’.
He also claims it implies he is ‘a violent criminal who took part in gang wars’, and is a criminal who conducted or sought to conduct illegal gambling and engaged or sought to engage in the supply of heroin.
Mr Domican claims he has been ‘greatly injured in his credit, and reputation, and has been brought into public scandal, odium and contempt’.
Dublin-born Domican is a former garbage collector and onetime inner-city Labor Party numbers man who has been heavily involved in the construction industry.
Tony Abbott once described Mr Domican as a standover man while he was federal workplace relations minister; Mr Domican challenged Mr Abbott to a boxing match to raise money for charity but Mr Abbott declined.
Mr Domican was charged with one murder, one attempted murder and five conspiracies to murder in the 1980s but was cleared of every alleged offence.
Some of those prosecutions relied on the word of disreputable and discredited prison informers.
The murder charge against Mr Domican was in relation to the death of hitman Chris Flannery in 1985, an accusation no one now believes. Flannery’s body has never been found.
Justice Wigney’s instructions come just a day before Last King of the Cross appears as one of four finalists at the opening of the Sydney Crime Writer’s Festival.
The memoir was long-listed for the Australian Crime Writers Association’s prestigious Ned Kelly Awards but did not make the final five.
The book charts Mr Ibrahim’s rise from a boy fleeing war-torn Lebanon with his family to his nights as a bouncer and his eventual domination of Sydney’s nightclub scene.
Mr Domican claims a passage in the book defames him by carrying the imputations that he ‘was willing to be hired to kill people other than the lbrahims’