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Brittany Groth, the wife of Victorian Liberal Party deputy leader Sam Groth, has slammed a “despicable” decision by the Herald Sun newspaper to publish a series of stories speculating about “when I first had sex with my husband”.
In an emotive statement, Brittany Groth said the inference that their relationship began when she was under 18 and he was her tennis coach was baseless and false and that a tabloid hit-job on her husband had “spiralled into a gross witch hunt”.
Sam Groth’s wife, Brittany, has slammed the Herald Sun for its reports on her relationship with her husband.Credit: Getty
The Groths have launched legal action against the paper, both for defamation and serious invasion of privacy, after it published stories questioning whether their relationship began on an improper, and potentially criminal, basis.
Lawyers for the couple have also initiated defamation proceedings against Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas for comments she made in response to a question about the Groths at a press conference on Tuesday.
“I never imagined that I, a happily married woman in my thirties with children, would be forced to defend myself or my family against outrageous insinuations and a public dissection of my private life by a newspaper,” Brittany Groth said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Herald Sun’s decision to speculate salaciously about my personal life from 14 years ago, when I was a teenager, is not journalism. It is a disgraceful smear campaign, devoid of fact, public interest or even basic decency.”
“The Herald Sun never once attempted to contact me. Their conduct has amounted to pressure on me to disclose intimate details of my personal and private life, including when I first had sex with my husband, to defend myself against fiction.”
The Groths have previously said they met at Brittany Groth’s suburban tennis club in 2011, when Brittany was 17, and Sam Groth, a 23-year-old professional player, had taken a break from the touring circuit and was working as a coach.
Under Victorian law, it is a criminal offence to have sex with someone under the age of 18 if they are under your care or supervision.
In her statement, Brittany Groth said Sam was not her coach and she was in another relationship at the time. “We did not engage in any conduct that would even arguably fall within the provisions quoted by the Herald Sun,” she said.
The pair were married in 2018 and have twin four-year-old sons.
This masthead has contacted News Corp, publisher of the Herald Sun, for comment.
The initial Herald Sun story sparked heated exchanges within the Liberal Party about whether MPs were briefing against family members of a colleague.
Premier Jacinta Allan and Opposition Leader Brad Battin have said families should not be dragged into politics.
The only parliamentarian to publicly comment on the substance of the allegations against Sam Groth was Leader of the House Mary-Anne Thomas. When asked about the matter at a press conference on Tuesday, she said it was not appropriate for any person in a position of authority, such as a teacher or a coach, to date a teenager.
The Groths’ lawyers, Patrick George and Sue Chrysanthou, SC, wrote to Thomas on Wednesday claiming the comments were defamatory and demanding she apologise by 4pm that day. Thomas has not responded to the letter.
When asked about the matter on Thursday, Allan said she was unaware that Thomas, also the state’s health minister, had been threatened with legal action.
Brittany Groth, a mother-of-two who holds no public office, has emerged as a potential test case for a new statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, which came into force in June this year. The privacy tort, which media companies – including Nine, the owner of this masthead – lobbied against, was introduced as part of a strengthening of Australia’s privacy laws by former federal attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.
In her statement, Brittany Groth said it was outrageous that her private life as a teenager had become fodder for public debate.
The Groths.Credit: Instagram
“What began as a tabloid hit-job on my husband has now spiralled into a gross witch hunt with real collateral damage,” she said. “Our family. We have built a life together. A marriage of seven years. Two beautiful children.
“There is no justification for attacking a woman’s integrity, let alone her children, in the pursuit of gossip. These articles are based entirely on conjecture and cruel assumptions, not on fact. It sets a dangerous precedent.
“I am reclaiming the narrative of my life. I am the only person who owns my story. And I will not sit back while my family is dehumanised for headlines.”
Groth said the damage done by the reports was aggravated by the paper’s decision to open the online articles to reader comments.
Herald Sun editor-in-chief Sam Weir has stood by the paper’s reporting. If the dispute goes to court, the paper will defend the story on public interest grounds. The privacy tort law lists media freedom as a countervailing public interest.
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