In an embarrassing turn of events for an Eastern Suburbs anti domestic violence campaigner, Rachael Natoli, Magistrate Ross Hudson at Waverley Local Court dismissed her application for a private AVO against Brett Chisholm, a junior football coach, as “frivolous and vexatious”.

Paul McGirr vigorously cross-examined Ms Natoli who claimed that Mr Chisholm had intimidated her in an email exchange involving the parents of a Year 2 class in the Eastern Suburbs. She then conceded she had paraphrased the language Mr Chisholm had allegedly used when she claimed he yelled at her at Skyzone and had no other witnesses to support her version. She further claimed that Mr Chisholm had intimidated her in the email exchange and continued to intimidate her in the period afterwards, but when pressed by Mr McGirr she said she had not had any contact with Mr Chisholm after the email exchange.

Mr McGirr told the court in closing submissions that “unfortunately, like a lot of these matters in this current climate, AVOs can be used as weapons and not shields, which is what they were designed for”.

Magistrate Hudson made a costs order against Ms Natoli, finding her not to be a witness of credit.