A unrepentant blogger has been jailed for four months after "enthusiastically" defying orders banning the naming of two women accused of having affairs with Seven West Media boss Tim Worner.
NSW self-described journalist Shane Dowling "remains ferociously committed to the righteousness of his conduct", seeing himself as a "fierce proponent of free speech", said Justice Ian Harrison in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday.
"Even if on one view Mr Dowling's enthusiasm for the cause as he perceives it borders on obsession, Mr Dowling is nonetheless to my observation a man of some intelligence who doubtless appreciates the proper legal foundation for his contempt."
He was found guilty in March of contempt of court after he breached orders that he remove the names of the women from his website and stop republishing the allegations made in legal documents by Amber Harrison.
Ms Harrison, whose court battle over her affair with Mr Worner ended last month, had alleged the two Seven on-screen identities also had sexual relationships with him.
The women, who have been given the pseudonyms Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, have denied the claims, and their names are suppressed by the court before proposed defamation proceedings.
Dowling's conduct in repeatedly publishing the names and failing to remove existing posts was "intentional, wilful and deliberate", the judge said.
"Mr Dowling was bound to obey the orders of the court.
"He is not entitled to choose not to do so, whether because he asserted a belief that the orders ought not to have been made, or for any other reason."
Dowling, who previously has been found guilty of contempt in another matter, was not represented at the hearings before Justice Harrison and provided no information about his motivation, background or personal circumstances.
In written submissions, he said "If I was jailed I have no doubt I would be correctly classified by social media users as a political prisoner".
The proceedings were "a national scandal" and he'd done nothing more than "any journalist does every day around the country" in naming people referred to in tendered legal documents.
"This matter is a huge free speech, political communication and public interest matter," he wrote.
But the judge said he had done more than journalists do on a daily basis, with his contempt arising not from the fact that he named the women in the first place but from his disobeying orders to take their names down and his continued re-publication of them.
