Judith Gibson defends the free speech of a poor bouncer Judge Judith Gibson deserves your praise for showing such sturdy good sense: A Sydney journalist who sued a trendy Oxford Street nightclub for defamation, claiming it falsely and "maliciously" declared he was too drunk to enter, has lost his case in the District Court, with a judge rejecting his version of what happened and finding that his complaint was "trivial..." Richard Sleeman, a well-known sports writer and radio producer, ... claimed that on December 23, 2011, as he stood in a queue at The Palms on Oxford nightclub, a doorman singled him out and said in a loud voice: "You're way too drunk, you can't come in. "Go away and sober up somewhere else."" The 62-year-old strenuously denied that he was drunk, claiming that he had in fact been discriminated against because of his age... This had destroyed his reputation as a campaigner against alcohol-related anti-social behaviour, and left him fearful of going into any licenced premises with a doorman or security guard... In the Sydney District Court on Wednesday, Judge Judith Gibson found ... that, had they in fact been shouted into the street, the comments were potentially defamatory, but that they were a necessary part of the bouncer's job. Gibson's previous tangles with stupid defamation cases that seem to cost more pain than they resolve include this case, in which 14 Korean-language papers were sued: TWO computer-illiterate barristers, problems with translators, the death of a defendant, numerous adjournments, appeals and frayed tempers have plagued a long-running case that a judge has described as a "strain on court resources and staff." The 23 judgments by NSW District Court judge Judith Gibson also raise concerns that the court is not equipped to deal with megalitigation. The defamation trial she presided over ran for 75 days, as well an earlier three-week jury hearing. There were close to 4000 transcript pages, 34 witnesses and more than 1000 pages of submissions.