Nine facing lawsuit over ACA’s cavoodle story

Disputes and spats are daily fodder for A Current Affair but one 2021 story over ‘Oscar the cavoodle’ has led to a defamation suit for Nine.

In May last year Nine aired a segment on a custody battle between original owner Mark Gillespie, who says he purchased and trained Oscar, and Gina Edwards and her husband Kenneth Flavell who at the time claimed they were the rightful owners.

‘Oscar the cavoodle’ has almost 10,000 followers on Instagram in cute pooch photos.

Nine’s story included emotional scenes filmed in Kirribilli Park of the dog being taken and cameras in hot pursuit.

Gina Edwards, a former US Assistant State Attorney and now a NSW commercial litigation barrister, is unhappy with the reports by Nine and is now suing the network.

The Australian reports she alleges Nine imputed she was a “thief who stole Oscar the cavoodle,” and that she “stole Oscar the cavoodle for her own financial benefit”.

Amongst her grievances are claims Nine’s journalist ambushed her, that she was filmed without consent, no investigation was carried out to verify the allegations made about her and a failure to reporting the outcome of an apprehended violence order between Edwards and Oscar’s original owner, and  allegedly falsely reported the conclusion of court action.

She claims two segments have been viewed on Facebook over 800,00 times, and is also seeking the removal of tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram posts and YouTube videos.

“(Nine) misleadingly asserted that ‘While Mr Gillespie initially allowed the drama to play out in the courts, he’s now made the decision to allow Oscar to go to Ms Edwards’, whereas the true position was that the Court made orders declaring Edwards the owner of Oscar,” documents state.

A court date is yet to be set.