Rindos v Hardwick

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Rindos v. Hardwick was a landmark case of Internet defamation heard in 1994 in which Western Australian lawyers representing a visiting American academic sought to create a legal precedent by deeming an email sent by Gil Hardwick to have alleged paedophilia against David Rindos, a probationary lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Western Australia.

Mr Hardwick was living at the time with his wife and young family in Derby as part of a field trip into the Great Sandy Desert in the far north-west of Western Australia.

As far as can be ascertained Mr Hardwick was studying in a different department, had not experienced any professional differences with Dr Rindos, and in fact hardly knew him beyond the constant disruption being suffered by students throughout the scandals among staff over his insistence on being granted tenure.

The background controversy was concerned with preferential homosexual and lesbian engagement between staff and selected students; and more generally over the disruption to their studies caused by radical changes wrought by the then Hawke Labor Government. Whether this had any bearing on the University's repeated refusal to grant Dr Rindos tenure is not known.

Mr Hardwick's email seeking to clarify the situation in the midst of global hysteria among homosexual academics and their supporters being incited by the case was posted to the Usenet newsgroup sci.anthropology.

The Usenet posting was made via DIALix, arguably Australia's first commercial Internet Service Provider, although the court did not consider whether the ISP was in any way responsible for carriage of the allegedly offensive message.

Dr Rindos (1947-1997) was awarded $40,000 in damages from Mr Hardwick (b. 1949), although Rindos died apparently bankrupt while Mr Hardwick was preparing his appeal and the matter lapsed.

On April 23 2008 Gilbert John Hardwick was found guilty of indecently dealing with and 8yo boy and three counts of possessing child pornography. He is currently on remand awaiting a psychiatric assessment prior to sentencing.