Woman fined for falsely claiming her neighbors are pedophiles on Facebook

A Queensland woman has been ordered to pay nearly $187,111 after she falsely branded her neighbor’s pedophiles in a post to a local Facebook group.

Zoe Anne Gooding was ordered to pay de facto partners Mianka Rodgers and Michael Usher $133,651 in compensatory damages, $43,436 in aggravated damages plus $9,475 in interest by the Queensland District Court on Friday, after the couple sued Ms. Gooding for defamation in February 2022.

The court heard of the devastating impact the post had on the couple’s life, including forcing them to abandon their plans to become foster parents.

The $187,111 also included a $10,023 compensation payment to Mr. Usher for Ms. Gooding running him over with her car after he sued her, leaving him with a fractured rotator cuff and three broken ribs.

The parties had been neighbors in the tight-knit coastal suburb of Bushland Beach in Townsville’s north and had attended barbecues and other social gatherings in their quiet cul-de-sac, where about 50 residents all knew each other.

In September 2021, Ms. Gooding posted to the Bushland Beach Crime Alert group, which had nearly 5000 members, “Paedophile 12 Holbourne Street.”

She then posted two follow-up comments.

“When it’s your kid being touched then you wouldn’t be saying it’s a wild accusation,” she wrote in response to one query.

“We know cos they tried getting our six-year-old to go with them multiple times,” she said in another comment.

Members of the group responded with comments such as, “Are the cops doing anything about it?”, “Have they been arrested?” and, “That’s disgusting. Please report to police.”

About 90 minutes later, however, Ms. Gooding posted again claiming she had been “hacked”, writing, “Hi everyone. So looked [sic] like my FB had been hacked. Neighbor just went mental and we were wondering why. Have reset my settings. Apologies.”

Members expressed incredulity, with one writing, “You put a post up about a pedophile and there [sic] apparent address. Gonna need a bit more explaining than ‘we got hacked’.”

District Court Judge John Coker said it was “noteworthy” that, in light of Ms. Gooding’s later voluntary admission, the statement that she had been hacked was “demonstrably false.”

“It is also clear that the consequences for the first and second plaintiffs has been significant,” he said.

Mr. Usher, who worked at a local plumbing company, was only made aware of the post when a friend who was watching TV with him at the time received a text message with a screenshot from the group and showed him.

Ms. Rodgers, who was working as a FIFO chef at the Moranbah North Coal Mine, found out after she finished her shift and saw a message from Mr. Usher.

The couple told the court how their “life changed following the defamatory post”, making them fearful of leaving home or socializing with neighbors.

“Mick did not want to leave the house,” Ms. Rodgers said in her affidavit.

“He closed all the curtains and would not go outside to mow the grass. He told me repeatedly that he felt ashamed and embarrassed. He became progressively more withdrawn from communicating with me, his friends and neighbors. Our social life in Holbourne Street stopped dead.”

She added that she had changed her shopping habits, driving an additional 10 to 20km to go to a different Coles so she wouldn’t be recognized.

“The defamatory post has changed me,” she said.

“Whereas I was previously quite an outgoing person, I am now more shy of social interaction. I don’t like telling people about what happened with the defamatory post. Also, I will not touch anybody’s child. Due to the impact of the defamatory post Mick and I have abandoned our plans to become foster parents.”

In June 2022, after they had launched defamation proceedings, Mr. Usher said Ms. Gooding struck him twice with her car on Holbourne Street.

“I have been interviewed by the police in respect to the incident and they have advised me that Zoe Gooding has been charged with various offenses,” Mr. Usher said in his affidavit. “I am awaiting further details of those charges.”

Ms. Rodgers said the couple felt they had “no choice but to take steps to try and restore our reputation as best we could in the circumstances.”

“The allegations made against Mick and I are dreadful and have left a terrible stain on our reputations and on our address,” she said.

“It is important that people understood clearly that Mick and I are not pedophiles. However, I do not believe that whatever we do we will ever be able to wash the stain away entirely.”

Ms. Gooding made a voluntary admission in April 2022 that she was the sole publisher of the post, and as a result, a default judgment was entered in July 2022.

The matter then turned to an assessment of damages.

Lawyers for the couple had difficulty contacting Ms. Gooding, who eventually replied in a November 2022 email that she was “currently residing in a women’s shelter in North Brisbane and have no capacity to return to Townsville to attend.”

“I have no assets to my name,” she wrote.

“The only income I receive is $200 per fortnight through family tax benefit $116 of which goes to paying for my accommodation and food. I would be willing to submit the remainder of this as a payment plan for the defendants until the court-appointed amount is paid [sic]. To be blunt it was foolhardy of your clients to proceed with the matter as it was known to them that I was poor.”

In his decision, Judge Coker said the plaintiffs’ reputations had been “gravely injured” by Ms. Gooding’s conduct and there was “the need for a very real penalty to be imposed in relation to the aggravated nature of the publication.”

“Of particular significance here, is that the subsequent conduct of the defendant in running the second plaintiff over in a motor vehicle, following the institution of these proceedings is evidence, or it can be inferred from it, of the defendant’s improper motivations and intentions,” he said.

“In that regard, the conduct of the defendant, it is said, simply reaffirms the defamatory statement that she made and her actions.”