A 75-year-old man who was investigated by his employer after he was wrongly accused in emails of being a “peeping Tom” has been awarded $20,600 in damages for defamation.

The NSW District Court heard the man worked for free as chairman of the strata committee of a mixed retail and residential complex in Church Street, Parramatta, and inspected the windows of an upstairs unit following a report they were broken during a storm.

Following that inspection, the owner of the unit emailed the president of the owners corporation and 17 other people, saying his tenant had complained about the man “walking along the balcony” outside and “attempting to look through the windows”.

The email, sent on August 30 last year, questioned whether the strata committee had “turned into a ‘Peeping Tom’ committee”.

In a second email that day, the apartment owner said he would “withhold contacting the police on this privacy intrusion/peeping Tom matter until I have a response from the strata committee”. He wanted the man to resign or be sacked.

The emails prompted the man’s employer to launch an investigation. He was “exonerated more or less immediately”, NSW District Court Judge Judith Gibson said in a judgment on September 10.

Judge Gibson said the man gave evidence that “as part of his employment activities, he held the unpaid position of chairperson of the strata committee”.

“As a 75-year-old man who now lived alone, work was an important part of his life … He spent many hours at the building attending to maintenance and repair issues,” Judge Gibson said.

The man gave evidence he sought to have the windows repaired immediately after an August 18 email. He told the strata manager on August 30, “Just checked the windows. Have not been replaced yet!”

He said the defamatory emails and subsequent investigation by his employer made him feel “like I had somehow been charged with an offence and had to prove my innocence”.

He launched defamation proceedings last year and also sued over an earlier and unrelated email, allegedly from the same author, which was sent on May 30 last year and said: “You are a pig.”

The man who wrote the emails did not appear in court and did not file a defence, but Judge Gibson said she was satisfied he was aware of the proceedings and given a chance to respond.

Judge Gibson said correspondence tendered in court demonstrated the author of the emails was “unpleasant to everyone” on the strata committee and “bestowed opprobrious nicknames” on them.

Judge Gibson took into account recent Court of Appeal judgments questioning the size of NSW defamation damages payouts and awarded $20,000 plus $600 in interest. She said the “pig” email played a “minimal” role in assessing damages.

Judge Gibson also awarded indemnity costs, which will be higher than the damages payout.

The court heard the man’s total legal costs were close to $50,000 but he will not recover all of that amount.

“The present case is a good example of the dangers of not being prepared to apologise where an apology is clearly warranted,” Judge Gibson said.

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