Barrister awarded one of the largest defamation payouts in Australian history after being named in Corryn Rayney murder investigation

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Barrister Lloyd Rayney has been awarded more than $2.62m in damages against the West Australian government in one of the largest defamation payouts in Australian history.

Rayney took legal action in the WA supreme court over the fact he was publicly named by police in 2007 as the prime and only suspect in his wife Corryn Rayney’s killing. He was later acquitted of murder.



The damages include nearly $1.8m in loss of income and $846,000 in damage to his reputation and distress.

Corryn Rayney's murder still unsolved despite year-long reinvestigation Read more

Last week supreme court judge John Chaney found a series of press conferences by Detective Jack Lee in 2007 that named Rayney “bore an imputation” and “gave rise to a reasonable suspicion” he had murdered his wife.

In 2007, Corryn Rayney, a 44-year-old supreme court registrar, was found dead in bushland in Perth’s Kings park, having disappeared eight days earlier after attending a dancing class in Bentley. Police charged Lloyd Rayney with murder in December 2010 and he was acquitted in a judge-alone trial on 1 November 2012.

Chaney found Rayney was only entitled to damages for economic loss for three years from the date of the defamation in 2007 until the murder charge in 2010, ruling out a payout for permanent damages to reputation and future earnings.

The amoung revealed on Wednesday is less than the $10m Rayney claimed and also less than the $5m the state estimated his losses were.