The dick pic court case
Luke Sayers’ wife says she was falsely blamed for the infamous leaked photo.
It really says something about the quality of a dick pic when the subject insists it was taken purely for medical reasons.
Such is the case with Luke Sayers — the former PwC and Carlton Football Club boss now at the centre of one of the most absurd court dramas of the decade.
I wrote about this saga last year.
As you may recall, some nefarious person got access to Luke Sayers’ private photos and social media account on X, which they then used to send out the dick pic. There was no note or explanation. Just a picture of his penis leaning on a pallid middle-aged belly, with the account of a woman Sayers is professionally acquainted with tagged alongside it.
This picture stayed online for an excruciating 13 minutes before it was deleted.
Many people thought this was an instance where someone tried to send a private dirty picture, forgot how direct messages work, and then accidentally broadcast their knob to the entire world.
Sayers denied this was the case.
“I did not post the image, either deliberately or accidentally,” he said in a statement.
But who did? And what would they possibly have to gain? There were a few theories.
When this story was first doing the rounds I personally heard from two entirely separate people that his estranged wife, Cate, was responsible. I was told that she was scorned, angry, and put up the picture in a fit of spite. Both individuals claimed to have insider knowledge of the case.
Apparently many others heard this rumour. Cate says she was even approached by a journalist who asked whether the story was true.
At the time I was sceptical. This seemed unlikely behaviour from a woman with her own reputation to protect. Is anybody better off for the world having seen their partner’s dick?
It turns out I was right. Cate Sayers never posted her husband’s penis online. A photo that (according to Luke Sayers) was taken for medical purposes only, and was never meant to be seen by a lover.
This at least I hope is true. I would be more aroused if someone sent me Ebola.
But spare a thought for Cate. Not only did she have to deal with the social embarrassment of that tweet, and all that it implied, she also then copped the blame. Luke Sayers is a well-known and powerful man in Melbourne’s social circles. This would surely have affected her life in many, humiliating ways.
So how did the rumour even start? Cate thinks it began with her husband – that’s why she’s suing him for defamation.
Excruciating messages between the pair have been tendered to court and are now widely published in the media. Most of them occur soon after the incident.
In one conversation, Luke was messaging Cate while she was on holidays in Europe. He was apologetic, she was angry. Cate wrote that she didn’t like that his statement implied she was responsible.
“The world thinks I posted it. Thanks,” she wrote.
“I have tried to call. I love you. It breaks my heart how you are feeling. Nobody we know thinks in any way you did it, that’s all that matters,” he replied.
But at some point, soon after this exchange, Luke Sayers’ thoughts on who was responsible for the hack must have changed. The AFL’s integrity unit was investigating the case, and they wanted Sayers to account for the dick pic.
According to the lawyers acting for Cate, in a sworn affidavit, Luke accused his wife of posting the picture on X. He also said her denials could not be trusted because she suffers from mental illness (bipolar and multi personality disorder) and she sometimes refused to take her medication.
Cate says this is wholly untrue. According to her lawyers there were 11 false claims, in total, made in that document.
Remarkably, Cate Sayers was never interviewed by the AFL. Her lawyers say they accepted his statutory declaration with very little investigation and that the AFL “did not forensically examine Luke Sayers’ phone, X account or the photo, nor ask for any proof of the medical issue which he claimed was the reason for the photo existing.”
But to be fair, would anyone really want to thoroughly investigate the dick ailments afflicting Luke Sayers?
It took just two weeks for the AFL to clear Luke Sayers of any wrongdoing. He stepped down as President of the Carlton Football Club anyway.
There’s more to come.
Cate’s legal team has put out subpoenas to Carlton and the AFL demanding that they provide a copy of all communications that reference the picture, the statutory declaration, or the investigation.
Meanwhile Luke Sayers is applying to have the case moved from the Supreme Court to the Family Court so that the matter can be dealt with privately. Cate doesn’t want that. She’d like the case to be unpacked, in public, so that she may be vindicated.
Should things go her way, the case will be heard in November.
If Luke Sayers thought his dick being posted online was the most damaging media storm of his career, this case is likely to prove otherwise.