Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes faced a puerile, contemptuous and malicious social media campaign when he stood trial for the sexual abuse of girls last year, his appeal has heard.
Indeed the campaign was so extraordinary, his barrister says, that he was unable to receive a fair trial and proceedings against him should never have taken place.
"Hang the pedo" was just one of the phrases barrister Phillip Boulten SC said got more than 220,000 "likes" when it was posted on social media in the lead-up to the actor's trial last year.
Mr Boulten told the Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday that "this was a case where there was poisonous vilification of the applicant not by mainstream media but by very effective social media that involved the most poisonous and vile publication that anyone could ever receive".
"(It was) designed to ridicule and undermine the appellant's position before and during the trial," he said.
Hughes has chosen not to appear at the appeal hearing, which is challenging his conviction and sentence on 10 charges relating to sexual and indecent acts perpetrated on four young girls in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 67-year-old was jailed for at least six years in 2014, with Judge Peter Zahra describing the once popular sitcom actor as a sexual predator who systematically exploited young girls and then relied on his position to ensure his victims' compliance and silence.
Now Hughes is appealing on a number of grounds, including that the judge erred when he allowed all the counts against him to be heard in a single trial and that he also should have permanently stayed the proceedings against the actor.
Mr Boulten argued Judge Zahra underestimated the problem the online publicity posed - saying it amounted to a malicious campaign to ensure Hughes did not get a fair trial.
He also pointed to numerous paid interviews carried out by one of Hughes's victims, Hey Dad! child star Sarah Monahan, before his arrest.
This included a paid interview with the Nine Network's A Current Affair (ACA) organised by agent Steve Moriarty.
"They (ACA) gathered together people they understood would be likely to be complainants of a criminal court case and they told them, `Don't go to the police, go on TV and then go to the police'," Mr Boulten said.
Ms Monahan, he added, had also signed a one-year publicity agreement.
But Justice Richard Button questioned Mr Boulten's claim the jury was unable to be impartial because of the nature of the media coverage, adding that they returned a hung verdict on one count.
"That is suggestive that they were going through each individual count and determining them."
The hearing continues.
