A former Penthouse pet who was accused of being a prostitute and running a drug syndicate has had her defamation case against News Corp thrown out because a judge said the claims were partly true.
Simone Farrow, 42, took the media body to court over an article published in the Sunday Telegraph claiming she formed a sexual relationship with a prison guard in return for preferential treatment, which she claimed was defamatory and false.
Farrow, a swimsuit model, was convicted of helping smuggle ice into Australia in September last year and sentenced to a minimum of six-and-a-half years in jail. She attempted to smuggle the drugs into the country inside packets of bath salts.
The article, titled ‘Drugs, sex and an officer’, also claimed Farrow was a prostitute, was in charge of a drug operation and was a convicted criminal.
Her case was dismissed by the NSW District Court because many of the article’s claims were true, given she had pleaded guilty to importing crystal meth and was serving an 11-year prison sentence.
Simone Farrow (pictured) has had her defamation case thrown out because a judge said the claims in a Sunday Telegraph article were based on her own evidence
Simone Farrow (pictured) took the media body to court over an article claiming she formed a sexual relationship with a prison guard in return for preferential treatment
The Sunday Telegraph article on Farrow claimed she began a sexual relationship with a prison guard two days after she was locked up for running an international drug-smuggling syndicate, in return for being able to make unrecorded phone calls from the prison telephone line.
Farrow was found guilty of being the mastermind behind a crystal meth importation ring that saw the drug hidden in mail from Hollywood to Sydney.
The article also claimed Farrow had worked as a prostitute in the past, and had numerous politicians among her clientele.
She told a court during her trial for drug smuggling that her mother pushed her into the industry and exposed her to ‘a lot of things that most people shouldn’t be when you are a teenager’.
Farrow was found guilty of being the mastermind behind a crystal meth importation ring that saw the drug hidden in mail from Hollywood to Sydney
The Sunday Telegraph article on Farrow claimed she began a sexual relationship with a prison guard in return for being able to make unrecorded phone calls from prison
Farrow rejected the article’s claims she had sex with the guard, who quit after the Australian Federal Police launched an investigation into the incident, in exchange for unrecorded phone calls and her title as someone who ‘ran’ a drug smuggling operation.
Justice Lucy McCallum dismissed this, agreeing the story was ‘plainly defamatory but at least partly true’.
‘It would be absurd to allow the applicant to seek a remedy for damage to her reputation caused by the publication of her own evidence,’ Justice McCallum said.
The remaining claims of the article were not deemed to be worth the subsequent legal costs.
Farrow attempted to appeal the order in the NSW Court of Appeal, which rejected the application.