AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon has defended the integrity of his new corporate communications boss, who was an adviser to former Carlton president Luke Sayers during a lewd picture scandal.
The well-connected Sharon McCrohan is still settling into her new role at AFL headquarters, having been Sayers’ spin doctor last year amid the lewd photo scandal which has seen Cate Sayers launch defamation proceedings against her estranged husband in the Victorian Supreme Court.
McCrohan was an adviser to Sayers when he was investigated by the AFL integrity unit after an explicit image of a penis appeared on his X account in January last year, tagging an executive at health insurance giant Bupa.
The post was removed about 15 minutes later, with Sayers claiming he had been hacked. He later said the photo had been taken for medical purposes.
The AFL cleared Sayers and closed the investigation after he provided a statutory declaration to the league. He quit as president of the Blues shortly after.
Dillon, in a series of radio interviews on Saturday, denied the AFL’s investigation had been tarnished by the explosive claims made by Luke and Cate Sayers in court.
“Not at all,” Dillon said on 3AW.
In court, Sayers has alleged his former wife stole emails, texts and photographs from his phone and used them to launch defamation action against him after he provided personal information about her to the AFL investigation into who posted the lewd photo.
Asked if McCrohan had also been tarnished by her role in the saga, Dillon replied: “Not at all.”
McCrohan did not respond when contacted by this masthead on Saturday.
“Again, Luke and Cate are going through whatever they are. There is a court process going on. But I will absolutely stand by the integrity investigation,” Dillon said.
“Luke is no longer the Carlton president. He is no longer under the purview of the AFL.”
In the documents filed in the Supreme Court, Cate Sayers alleged her estranged husband told the AFL’s integrity unit and Carlton officials in his statutory declaration that she had accessed his account without his knowledge and posted “a photograph of Luke’s penis on his X account”.
She claimed she was defamed by the statement because it implied she was “mentally disturbed”.
Cate Sayers also alleged in her statement of claim that Luke Sayers asked AFL investigators not to interview his wife or contact Victoria Police, effectively shutting her out of the probe and “removing any opportunity for Cate to respond to the allegations made by Luke in it”.
In his defence, filed this week, Luke Sayers alleged he and his wife were the only people with knowledge of the photograph before it was posted online.
He alleged that a day after the lewd photo was published online, Cate Sayers “said to Luke words to the following effect: ‘Let’s see how you get out of this one’.”
During a brief hearing on Friday, lawyers for Cate Sayers pushed for the claims to be heard by a jury in a five-day trial slated for November.
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