What Ever Happened to Profiler Pat Brown's Lawsuit against Rahni Sadler and Seven West Media?

A number of people have been asking whatever happened to my lawsuit against Rahni Sadler and Seven West Media after they mispresented and libeled me in their Sunday Night "documentary" about the Madeleine McCann case? Some have even asked if I just claimed to be suing them for publicity.

No, I was not seeking publicity. I had every plan of suing them and was working with my attorney, Brian Close, to go after them. He wrote a very excellent summary of charges against Seven West Media and they responded with a bunch of bogus malarkey. This was the necessary first step for an out-of-court settlement which could be admission of guilt with or without any monetary settlement or a monetary settlement with no admission of guilt; it is also part of the entire process to indicate to the court that you tried to settle the issue privately. This attempt of setttlement failed which meant we then had to go to the Australian court system. To begin the next leg of this libel suit, I needed to get an Australian solicitor to pursue the case. I contacted a half dozen attorneys and I learned that pursuing a case in Australia for libel against me was doomed to failure. Apparently, I could only win the case IF my damages occurred to a reasonably high level IN Australia. Since most of the damages were and would be (reputation and financial) in the US and the UK, I had a very weak case. In other words, as long as the producers of television shows to be aired in Australia cleverly pick foreigners to libel the crap out of, they will never be taken to court.

Since a lawsuit in Australia was now out, I pursued another methodology. I contacted two journalist organizations that were supposed to monitor ethics in journalism and investigate and punish those who do not follow the rules (the third organization I didn't bother with because that one was run by Seven West Media itself who had broken off with the others when things didn't go their way in the past!). However, both of those organizations refused to investigate Seven West Media in spite of the fact there was evidence that their standards had been transgressed. I can only guess they are really in league with the media organizations and are not going to bother with a nonAustralian's claims against them.

So, the end result; Australian journalists clearly can commit ethics violations against foreigners with impunity. If YOU are someone who is asked by the Australian media for an interview, think twice about cooperating. I still have one Australian media outlet and journalist who have been honorable with me (Mark Saunokonoko and Nine News) who I will still work with, but I will not be likely to cooperate with any others as it is not worth the risk to one's reputation.

Of course, it isn't only Australia that has a problem with journalistic ethics; the US and UK also have proven to be less than honorable which is why I usually restrict my interviews to live interviews so I cannot be edited, misrepresented, and libeled. All of this lack of integrity in the media is very disheartening because it prevents news from being truthful and factual and keeps people interested in getting the truth out to the public from sticking their necks out if doing so is going to result in getting them chopped off.

UPDATE! Just hours after I wrote this block, a friend I informed me that Rahni Sadler has been let go by Sunday Night! Supposedly, this all happened very quietly without any fanfare; she hasn't appeared since my segment came out...whoosh, gone. Now, I cannot say whether this had anything to do with my very willingness to speak out about her lack off ethics and complete abuse of my interview on the McCann case, but when Mark Saunokonoko wrote his article detailing my plans to sue Rahni Sadler and Sunday Night and then a number of UK papers picked up the story, it might well have been enough that the Sunday Night staff decided Rahni Sadler was getting far too much bad press and they were better off without her. It may just be coincidence but I sure hope that I helped send her on her way. She needs to be out of journalism and at work in some field where truth and honor don't matter.

NOTE: It is not entirely true I wasn't seeking publicity! But, I was not seeking publicity for me, I was seeking publicity to expose Rahni Sadler and Sunday Night. I am sure she thought she could do whatever she wanted without any risk because I would have no way of doing her any damage in return. Almost never can anyone really make enough waves to cause unethical journalists to suffer any consequences for their actions.

This was one of the reasons I had a lawyer draw up the basic legal statement about suing them because I knew I needed that to get the news to write about what Rahni Sadler and Seven West Media had done. Without a legal angle, they would have ignored me. I fully intended to go forth with the lawsuit, but it was even more important that the media cover me doing so in order to publicly put all the media on notice that ethics DO matter and false news and libeling people just to get a story is NOT acceptable.

I can't say my exposure of Rahni Sadler is reason for her removal from Sunday Night but if I am behind her dismissal, I couldn't be happier!


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
June 27, 2017