The AFL's Sayers doctrine
You can't make factual findings then claim you didn't need to check the evidence.
In the days before Easter came a surge of new journalism in the burgeoning genre of Sayers v Sayers – the husband-wife defamation case set down for a November trial but already unshadowing the sheer moral beggary of Melbourne chancer Luke Sayers.
This is a case of contested facts, of course, but it is also a case where what can already be discerned from court filings reflects very poorly on one party. Despite being given ample opportunity to do so, Luke has produced zero forensic evidence to support his alleged implication in a January 2025 statutory declaration provided to the AFL that the avant-garde photograph of his John Thomas published on X was put there by his wife Cate.
He has also declined to argue a truth defence to assertions made in this statutory declaration, assertions sworn under penalty of perjury. Which is, of course, his right.
Luke's defence described his prostrate nude as a "Medical Photograph", yet his lawyers have since confirmed that he never consulted a medical practitioner about the photograph or about the malady the photo was purportedly taken to immortalise.
