You may be aware of the Frank Hardy case where he was sued for criminal libel. He wrote the novel “Power Without Glory” about John West who ran an illegal tote, fixed races, bribed police and politicians, had people disposed of, and various other crimes. It was generally thought that he was basing the character on John Wren owing to the fact that it was generally known that John Wren had done at least some of these things. However, Wren was not the plaintiff. At one point in the novel it suggest that Mrs West had an affair and it was this that was the basis of the lawsuit.

What made this a very interesting lawsuit is the idea that they could identify Mrs Wren as Mrs West when the only thing that they had in common was a husband who was supposedly behind a lot of the corruption in Victoria. Naturally, he had the good sense not to sue and the defence had problems in trying to argue that the only reason that Mrs Wren was suing was the one suing was because if Mr Wren sued then all the things that were alleged would come out on in court. Mr Wren was clearly a pretty clever man because he didn’t want to admit that he recognised himself by all the illegal behaviour of the protagonist in Hardy’s novel.

In one of the stranger moments in my life, I was at the preview of a play that Frank Hardy had written and at intermission, I started to think about how the whole defamation case would have made a much more interesting play and that maybe I should interview him and try to write a play about it. And then I wondered how I’d go about getting to meet him. A voice........

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