The Daily Telegraph has been dealt a blow as it fights a defamation lawsuit brought by actor Geoffrey Rush, with a judge striking out much of the paper's defence.
The Oscar winner is suing the Sydney tabloid and its journalist Jonathon Moran over articles alleging he behaved inappropriately to a colleague during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear in 2015.
In the Federal Court on Tuesday, lawyers for the 66-year-old were successful in their preliminary application to have all of the paper's truth defence removed.
The Telegraph can no longer seek to prove it's substantially true that Rush engaged in scandalously inappropriate behaviour, after Justice Michael Wigney found the particulars provided to support the claims were "plainly deficient".
News Corp Australia subsidiary Nationwide News alleges Rush touched co-star Eryn Jean Norvill in a way that made her feel uncomfortable on five separate occasions during the final week of the production.
Justice Wigney said those details are "so vague and imprecise" that the claims are unable to be proven right.
Rush's legal team also made a bid to remove part of the paper's qualified privilege defence - which is that it was reasonable to publish the articles in the public interest - on the basis it included irrelevant facts and allegations.
This challenge was accepted with Justice Wigney throwing out three paragraphs of that defence saying they "were ambiguous and were likely to cause prejudice and delay in the future conduct of the proceedings".
The defence's application to subpoena the Sydney Theatre Company was set aside too.
"The publisher is not permitted to undertake what is referred to colloquially as a 'fishing expedition' in the hope of finding something in support of its plea," Justice Wigney said on Tuesday.
"It would appear they are unable to properly plead and particularise a defence of (truth) on the basis of the materials they presently possess."
Nationwide News was ordered to pay Rush's hearing court costs and will consider its position on whether to appeal the decisions or file an amended defence.
Rush is also accused of following his co-star into the women's toilet and standing outside her cubicle until she told him to "f*** off" at a party to celebrate the end of the production.
The defence denies the Telegraph articles made Rush out to be a pervert and a predator, having previously told the court they made no allegations of a sexual nature.
The matter will return to court next week with a trial expected later in 2018 to run for eight days.
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