Cash demand sinks Sims

A defamation action by retractable syringe inventor Douglas Sims has backfired, with a judge finding the former Eastland Medical Systems executive director dishonestly used his position to get $60,000 from the struggling company.

Supreme Court judge Ken Martin's dismissal of the entrepreneur's defamation case against Perth medico James Jooste comes 11 months after a Perth magistrate convicted Mr Sims of assault for throwing a bundle of legal papers at Dr Jooste's father Peter.

Peter Jooste, a senior Perth lawyer, and Mr Sims appeared to have been close business associates until around the time of Mr Sims' departure from Eastland on June 9, 2009.

Mr Sims has mounted unsuccessful legal attacks on Peter Jooste and launched the defamation action against the veteran lawyer's son over comments the medico made in 2010 on the website HotCopper.

In the posting, Dr Jooste said corporate governance and transparency were better than ever at Eastland. "If anyone is responsible for reckless or even criminal disregard for a shareholders' interests it would be . . . Douglas Arthur Sims," Dr Jooste wrote.

Mr Sims sued Dr Jooste for defamation but the case was defended on the basis that there was no proof that anyone had read the posting and, even if they had, the words were justified.

In his defence, Dr Jooste put up a letter that Mr Sims sent on Eastland's letterhead to the com- pany's chief financial officer on June 8, 2009, demanding his private company be paid $60,000 for shares he had transferred to a Jooste family company in 2008.

Justice Martin said Mr Sims's demand on Peter Tiede "contained unusual, even ominous" words that Mr Tiede would be breaching his contract if he did not comply.

Justice Martin said Mr Sims had "clothed himself" in the authority of being an Eastland director to get the money paid and was aware that Eastland would suffer financial detriment.

The judge described as "substantially true" the imputation that Mr Sims had engaged in criminal misconduct.