On Sunday, Channel Seven mistakenly referred to Benjamin Cohen, a student at the University of Sydney, as the “lone wolf attacker” who carried out the attack at Westfield Westfield in Sydney’s Bondi Junction, which resulted in six fatalities.
According to The Age, Cohen has hired two prominent defamation lawyers to sue the network.
His lawyers informed the public of Cohen’s intention to sue on Wednesday by sending out a concerns notice, which is a required step before a claim can be made in court.
George confirmed to The Age that Cohen’s lawyers had sent out a concerns notice to the Seven Network.
@the.australian
Channel 7 has blamed “human error” for identifying the wrong man as the knife-wielding murderer who killed six people at Sydney’s Bondi Junction Westfield on Saturday. This is Ben Cohen, falsely named as the murderer, who is a first-year UTS student. The murderer’s name was Joel Cauchi.
♬ original sound – The Australian
The publication claimed that the lawyers believed the network would seek to settle before taking the case to court. On Saturday, after a false statement was made about Cohen, which was then spread on social media, the network ran with it.
On its YouTube channel, Seven referred to Cohen as a “40-year-old lone wolf attacker” in a promo.
The NSW Police later confirmed that the man who carried out the attack at Westfield was Joel Cauchi. A police officer, Amy Scott, shot and killed him at the scene.
Cohen expressed his disappointment with the situation.
He told The Age that he was disappointed with how people spread misinformation without any consideration of the consequences or fact-checking. He also noted that the actions of these individuals have encouraged hatred.
According to Cohen, Channel Seven informed him that they would be issuing a formal apology.
Mark Cohen, the father of the student, said that the network had issued an apology, but he was not happy with the response.
A spokesperson for Seven told Mediaweek that the mistake was made due to human error, and the network takes full responsibility for it.