Tom,

            I have a lot of sympathy for the position you found yourself in and the criticism of how you responded - while well founded - is inevitably made with the benefit of both hindsight and of subsequent elucidation. Like most human 'events' the history of  "Laver and Others v. MacGregor" is messy, complicated and not easily subject to rational analysis.

In accepting one party's claim of naivete, it is only fair to allow that others may also have recourse to that explanation for their behaviour and  in which case I think you are overstating John MacGregor's knowingly risk taking behaviour - and understating the intimidatory process carried out by Elan Vital -:

>John was apparently in the throes of another short term relationship break up when he was served but he was served properly as was demonstrated when he posted on exp forum that night boasting of how he had beaten the cult lawyers. I'm not sure what he said cause that wasn't included in the court transcripts but he was caught bald facedly lying in court when the posts were presented to the court just after he claimed he had no idea what had happened that day and the EV team had tapes of their serving the order as well. He went to court prepared to bullshit his way through without considering that the EV legal team might have taken steps to ensure the evidence of what actually happened would be presented. I had hoped that this whole affair would die down without me ever having to state the obvious but there it is.<

Fistly, let's understand what happened in practice -  the 'serving' team travelled  from one side of Australia to the other - to serve John, not in his own home but in the home of an individual who themselves has suffered 'significantly' within Rawat's cult. I've no idea what MacGregor's motivation was - but I believe at the point of being 'threatened' on his friend's doorstep by people he claims did not identify themselves properly (and who were recording the event 'covertly') it is reasonable to believe that MacGregor acted with some thought of protecting his friend.

As far as I can tell the serving of the Anton Pillar (rarely used in Australia anyway) has never anywhere else in the world been served on a working journalist. The description MacGregor gave (I believe on the then F7) was of an event that appeared to him to be highly threatening - the fact that the recording of the event was considered by the Court to prove the 'service of the order' was done appropriately does not dispose of MacGregor's description - particularly as the the 'recorder' was under the editorial control of one side and not the other.

I have no idea whether or not John MacGregor lied in Court - I do believe that his actions once faced with the service of the Anton Pillar order are explicable in the terms that MacGregor used. Those actions were IMO motivated by fear and naivete - the problem for John was that he was judged as a professional journalist who should have known better.

In the event John MacGregor has paid a high price for his, firstly - professional negligence in not protecting data/sources and secondly - acting (IMO) naively. There is a however a much bigger issue and that is that the Australian legal system colluded (no matter how legally correct) in establishing a precedent for punishing journalists and other whistle blowers who fail to act within precise parameters. Rawat's poisonous little cult and the coterie of Queensland legal/business insiders who benefit from the IRCC spend/development won a litigation on points - Free Speech lost very heavily indeed.

Nik