Nicole Cornes with husband Graham and daughters Amy, Gia and Charlize. Picture: Calum Robertson Source: Sunday Mail (SA)
NICOLE Cornes pursued her long and stressful legal battle against Channel Ten to send a message to all women, including her daughters.
The court case centred on comments made in 2008 by panellist Mick Molloy on Ten's footy show Before The Game, where he alleged footballer Stuart Dew had slept with Cornes.
"Bullying and emotional abuse and sexist behaviour can come in many guises and none of that behaviour is a joke," Cornes said this week, describing the ordeal as "emotionally and financially taxing".
"I wanted to stand up for every woman but on a personal level I felt I wasn't fulfilling my role as a mother if I couldn't stand up for my girls. I couldn't believe it. How could they say that on national television?"
Comedian Mick Molloy.
Cornes felt so strongly about taking a stand, she took daughter Amy, now 18, to court so she could witness what it means to fight for what you believe in.
"I have three daughters and at the time Amy was 14 years old, so she was old enough to understand the meaning of the words that were said. She was in high school and didn't need to endure this criticism or gossip or innuendo," Cornes said.
"More broadly, women are often the brunt of bad jokes, and stereotypically blonde women, and I needed to let my girls know that we, as a gender, should not tolerate, shrug off or ignore such sexist behaviour."
Graham and Nicole Cornes outside court. Picture: Greg Higgs
The Supreme Court last week upheld Cornes' $93,000 defamation win against Ten and Molloy with Chief Justice Chris Kourakis saying "Molloy's jibe ... fell very flat".
Cornes, herself a qualified lawyer and adviser to Transport Services Minister Chloe Fox, said she took on Ten for the sake of Amy, Charli, 8, and Gia, 3, as well as for her husband, AFL and media personality Graham Cornes.
"I was upset for Graham. He didn't deserve that disrespect, neither did I or our marriage. Graham has been a rock. He's been wonderful and backed me all the way but he always does. He's remarkable in that way."
Cornes said she didn't see the comments made live on TV but was alerted to them the following Monday at work. At the time she was employed at Shop Distributive and Allied Employees' Union.
"Leith Forrest, the producer of Graham's sports show rang asking if I had seen Before The Game," she explained, "I said `no' and he told me, `you better have a look at the Channel Ten website ... Mick Molloy had a go at you'.
"I was perplexed because I don't know Mick Molloy and I wondered why I would be mentioned on Before The Game."
Having found the comments online, Cornes says she was "stunned" and "speechless".
"And then I was just really angry and mortified that someone would say that I had sex with an AFL footballer on national television and then run it on the website in the mix of highlights for last week's show. I just thought, `Is this real?' It made me feel sick."
In the following week, Cornes received numerous media inquiries about the comments and her initial response was to seek an apology from Ten. In September 2008, three months after the original broadcast, Molloy, below, gave an on-air apology, reported at the time as being "monotone". Cornes admitted she felt it was insincere.
"There was no remorse," she said. "It was like, `if' Nicole Cornes is upset, I apologise'. If? Well, clearly I was upset because of all the fuss I was making. They just didn't want to see that they'd done anything wrong."
The next step was a mediation meeting with Ten and its legal team. It was a "defining moment" for Cornes where she realised she had no option but to take legal action. "I broke down crying in front of the Ten management. I couldn't help it," she said.
"To them I could see straight away that this was business. Their approach was arrogant and uncompromising. I felt bullied and their lack of remorse and understanding was apparent. I left there feeling totally disrespected and belittled. As if my feelings and marriage were so insignificant that they felt like they could go round saying what they liked. That's why I needed to stand up for myself, my marriage and my girls."
It was during this time that Cornes gave birth to the couple's third daughter, Gia, and then fell victim to post natal depression. She had to "dig deep to find an inner strength" to take on a legal battle during such an emotionally difficult time. At almost every point, she considered dropping the case, but felt compelled to persist.
"I would have thrown away thousands of dollars in legal fees to still not get vindication or justice and have it known that what was said was wrong," she says. "If I dropped it, it's a free pass for someone else to be a target. It's not acceptable and can't be tolerated."
Taking Amy to court was an important part of teaching her eldest daughter that you must fight for what's right. "Amy got asked at school, `did your mother have an affair'," Cornes explained.
"She said when she got home, `how come he (Molloy) can say that?' and I said, `well this is the only avenue we have to deal with this'.
That's why I took her to court, to show her that you can't back away. You can't be scared of getting hurt, you can't be scared of losing the fight and you can't be scared of standing up for yourself."
Cornes is no stranger to standing up for herself. She came under fierce criticism in 2007 after being named as the Labor candidate for the Federal seat of Boothby.
During that election campaign she admitted she learnt to laugh at herself as she weathered a harsh public and media backlash, but the Molloy attack was different.
"The significance wasn't like weathering a political storm about something I'd said about policy, this was a personal attack on myself, my marriage and my family," she says. "It was just, right, enough is enough.
There is a clear line here and this is completely out of bounds. There's been months of media commentary and I have dealt with it on many levels but this was enough."
Besides an emotional toll, the lengthy legal proceedings could have financially crippled the high-profile couple. Cornes said her legal fees were "several hundreds of thousands" and if she'd been unsuccessful, the family would have lost their beachside home. Having won indemnity costs means that Ten must pay all legal fees.
"I couldn't have done it without the support of my lawyer Greg Griffin. Seeking justice is really hard for everybody. There is a real barrier to justice especially in civil litigation because you have to fund it.
"But it's only money. That's how we had to reconcile. They couldn't hurt us, it wasn't our family, it wasn't our children. It did drag out and you just had to keep going."
The 42-year-old said she refused to accept Molloy's one-liner was just a joke - a comment she's heard a lot over the past four years.
"I say to the critics out there, what if that was your mother, daughter or your partner, that that was said about on national television? How would they feel about that? Would they still think it was just a joke?" Cornes said she was aware the Adelaide public must get sick of seeing the name "Cornes" in the media, but this was a "mountain I had to climb".
"I know a lot of people must just roll their eyes at the mention of our last name in the paper but this was a really important principle."
Shelley O'Connell, of the Women Lawyers Committee of the Law Society of SA, said: "Nicole's case is important because she stood up for herself and family, and I think for all women too. Nicole's case was actually a defamation case, although it obviously touched on issues of sex discrimination. Obviously there has been a lot of progress made in terms of equality and anti-discrimination in our society but there is still a long way to go. Remarks, such as those made in Nicole's case, may still be seen as `jokes' or `harmless' and I think in many workplaces and sections of the community this attitude is still culturally ingrained. Jokes at the expense of women are often still seen as acceptable and they're not."
Cornes: "I didn't realise how much of a toll it was taking on our family until Friday last week and it was finally over." Well-wishers and supporters phoned the Cornes' home. "When the phone rang Charli ran and picked it up and said, `we won, we won'," Cornes laughed.
"She doesn't really understand what it's all about yet, but she will."
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