NSW police have dropped all charges against friendlyjordies producer Kristo Langker after accusing him of stalking former deputy premier John Barilaro.
Langker, 22, was arrested in June last year after an investigation by the NSW Police Fixated Persons Investigation Unit into alleged stalking.
He was charged with four counts of stalking or intimidating with intent to cause fear or physical harm and a hearing was set down for May this year.
But on Thursday in the Downing Centre Local Court magistrate Susan McIntyre ordered NSW police to pay costs of $12,000 to Langker’s lawyer Mark Davis.
Mr Davis confirmed his client was considering all his legal options after authorities dropped the charges with no explanation.
“He suffered enormous damage to his reputation, it’s not a nice thing to be called a stalker when it’s utterly untrue,” he told AAP.
He said Langker’s mother and girlfriend were both seriously assaulted and suffered significant trauma during the unnecessary move by effectively a “counter-terror unit”.
“All options are being considered now.”
Video footage of Langker’s arrest uploaded to YouTube includes a period of commotion in which the camera is lowered, and his mother exclaims that a police officer had assaulted her.
The police officer responds in the video by saying he tripped over.
In the video friendlyjordies Jordan Shanks accuses police of storming into Langker’s home, assaulting his family and taking him away in an unmarked police car, and said this was akin to an arrest in “Pinochet’s Chile”.
Mr Davis said while his client was delighted on Thursday with the result, he was also lucky.
“It’s disturbing to reflect that if Kristo hadn’t filmed it, if he didn’t have the resources of a legal team, he would likely be marching forward to a conviction.”
The criminal case against the YouTube channel producer formed part of a larger spat between his boss Shanks and Mr Barilaro, who sued him in the Federal Court for defamation.
In November the former MP received an apology but no damages when the lawsuit was settled over two videos titled bruz and Secret Dictatorship, published to Shanks’s YouTube channel in 2020.
Officers had alleged Langker intimidated or stalked the then-deputy premier in 2021 on two occasions, at Macquarie University on April 19 and in Sydney on June 4.
Asked why he didn’t like Mr Barilaro, Langker said outside court last year it wasn’t about liking him.
“It’s about doing journalism,” he told reporters.
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