The campaigner, who had travelled to Australia despite his visa being cancelled, leaves after high court found he had shown ‘consummate disregard’ for the law

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Controversial anti-abortion activist Troy Newman has left Australia after losing a last-minute legal challenge against his deportation.

The US citizen had been detained at Melbourne airport after flying to Australia despite having his visa revoked, over concerns his Australian speaking tour could incite community harm.

A spokeswoman for the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, confirmed on Saturday that Newman had departed Australia.

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Newman lost his bid in the high court to stop his deportation from Australia, after he arrived in the country without a valid visa.

Newman will also have to pay the commonwealth’s legal costs.

In making his decision in the high court in Melbourne on Friday, Justice Geoffrey Nettle highlighted Newman’s “consummate disregard” for Australian laws, by travelling to Australia with knowledge his visa had been cancelled.

“He does not come to this court with clean hands,” Nettle said.

The high court justice noted a recording Newman took of him being stopped at Denver airport because he did not have a valid visa as an evidence the campaigner knew his visa had been denied.

Airline workers had urged him to contact the Australian embassy before travelling on, Nettle said.

Despite disagreeing with the visa cancellation, Newman had “no right to treat it as nought”, Nettle said.

He was “determinately and avidly” intent on travelling to Australia, the justice said.

“He is the author of his own misfortune and predicament.”

Newman had been due to start a 10-day speaking tour of Australia on Thursday, but his visa was cancelled on Tuesday, before he flew out of the US, after it emerged Newman had advocated that abortion doctors in the US be tried as murderers, potentially opening them up to execution.

Mary Collier from Right to Life Australia, the anti-abortion group that organised the public seminars, expressed her disappointment at the high court’s decision.

“We were very much looking forward to hearing Troy speak in Australia,” she told reporters in Melbourne.