THE County Court in Victoria has overturned the intervention order taken out against the president of the Council Watch group Dean Hurlston by the mayor of an upper crust eastern Melbourne municipality.
City of Stonnington Mayor Melina Sehr won her judgment against Hurlston in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on July 1, 2025, after the long-time Liberal mayor told the court she had endured six years of targeted harassment from Hurlston.
The City of Stonnington in Melbourne’s inner south-east, alongside the Yarra River, includes the suburbs of Armadale, Kooyong, Malvern, Malvern East, Prahran, Toorak and parts of Glen Iris, South Yarra and Windsor – a large slice of Melbourne’s prime inner city real estate.
Cr Sehr said Hurlston’s alleged behaviour towards her had escalated in the three months since Victoria Police served him with an application for an interim personal safety intervention order (PSIO), which protects an individual from unwanted behaviour, including physical and mental harm. An interim order can be made until an application for a final order is determined.
Victoria Police made the initial application on Cr Sehr’s behalf, but it was denied by a magistrate in January. It was heard for a second time in April last year after further evidence was filed with the court.
Ms Sehr, a Justice of the Peace, alleged that Mr Hurlston made social media posts on consecutive days claiming she had misled the court and abused the judicial process.
Photos published on the Council Watch social media pages showed police officers issuing Mr Hurlston the interim order. Also mentioned in court was a public petition demanding Cr Sehr step down as mayor.
Cr Sehr told the court she had been subject to an “unrelenting stream of mockery, belittlement and abuse” from Mr Hurlston.
Magistrate Michelle Mykytowycz found that, on the balance of probabilities, an interim order was necessary to protect Cr Sehr’s safety pending a final hearing in June.
She said Mr Hurlston’s alleged behaviour — which Cr Sehr alleged included “mendacious” emails to Cr Sehr under false identities, public “slurs”, and personalised attacks “camouflaged by a broader discourse grounded in political commentary” — would fall within the definition of “harassment”.
She did not believe Cr Sehr was at risk of physical harm, but the evidence showed the alleged conduct had caused “severe anxiety and hence mental harm” that would worsen if allowed to continue.
However when the matter came before the County Court, it found the order must be set aside and Council Watch’s publications overwhelmingly demonstrated a continuing purpose of raising local concerns and scrutinising council governance.
Crucially, the court found that criticism of a politician’s integrity, conduct and performance was a legitimate subject of political commentary and derogatory, demeaning or offensive language did not automatically establish an improper purpose.
The Court was satisfied Mr Hurlston’s dominant purpose was publishing news and discussing political or public-interest matters and that he acted without malice as defined by the legislation and that the intervention order should never have been made.
“This is a decisive victory for all Victorians, community journalism and the right to hold elected representatives accountable,” Mr Hurlston says in a Council Watch email sent to Cairns News.
“In our view, this was a crushing and completely avoidable misuse of the intervention order process, that unfairly caused Mr Hurlston immense personal, reputational, professional and financial damage.
“Public officials are not above scrutiny, nor can criticism be silenced merely because it causes embarrassment, offence or political damage.
Council Watch will not be intimidated into silence. We will continue investigating councils, asking the questions others avoid and exposing failures residents deserve to know about. We thank you for your continued support..
The full judgement of the court can be read here: Hurlston v Sehr
