Paper wrongly named man in jail report

The wrong Mr Merity was named in a newspaper report as having been convicted of a serious dishonesty offence and jailed, a Sydney defamation hearing has been told.

The publication resulted in John James Merity being brought into "public disrepute, odium, ridicule and contempt", according to his statement of claim filed in the Federal Court.

The article incorrectly said "John James Merity, the former managing director of mining explorer Northwest, yesterday received a two-year jail term in New South Wales' District Court for giving false or misleading information to ASIC about a shareholding".

He is suing Nationwide News and John Dagge, who's the deputy editor of the Herald Sun business desk, over the February 15 article.

An apology has since been printed saying the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun and other News Corp Australia publications had published in print and online an article which conveyed "false and defamatory allegations of, and concerning, Mr John James Merity".

It said News Corp withdraws the allegations without reservation and they should never have been published.

"News Corp Australia apologises to John James Merity for the harm, hurt and distress caused to him and his family by reason of the publication of the false allegations," the apology said.

The lawsuit came before Justice Michael Wigney in the Federal Court in Sydney on Thursday.

Mr Merity's barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, said there was no dispute between the parties that her client had not been convicted of anything and had not been sentenced to two years in jail.

"Was this a case of mistaken identity .... they got the wrong Mr Merity?" the judge asked.

"Yes, they completely got the wrong Mr Merity," the lawyer replied.

But other issues remain before the judge including which entities were responsible for the re-publication of the article on a number of websites which Ms Chrysanthou submitted were controlled by Nationwide News.

Another matter involves the wording of an earlier apology, proposed by Nationwide but which Mr Merity had not wanted published.

A second case management hearing was listed for May 19.