[Excerpt from an interview with McManus]
Tone Deaf, July 30, 2014
http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/413757/au...journalist.htm
In a soon-to-be published interview with Tone Deaf, McManus called McClymont’s comments “enormously defamatory… that I withheld money from
Fleetwood Mac – that is such a lie! They’re my friends, they know it, the band knows it, the tax department know it, everyone knows it – they got paid in full.”
He explains: “It’s caused me damage with certain friends overseas hence why I did the other article in the Herald Sun to ensure the message got across,” saying that he and his lawyers were investigating legal action against Fairfax and the NSW Police, though no legal action has eventuated.
The Herald Sun article in question sees McManus explaining that the Police interview from which McClymont’s claims are based was conducted during a period of personal turmoil; “I was on a lot of morphine, I was drinking, and I was not in a good place.”
In his statement to media today, McManus questions: “What has Miss McClymont to gain by dragging up a difficult time marred by health issues via painkiller and alcohol dependence? … [she] may hide behind the deep pockets and layers of lawyers afforded by Fairfax Media, but every dog has their day and bad news sells newspapers, irrespective of the damage done to name, business and affiliates directly affected by the slander.”
McManus explains to Tone Deaf that the $700k bag of money was intended to pay back Owen Hanson Jnr, on behalf of ZZ Top for a tour. “What they did with subsequently thereafter should be none of my business.”
When asked why he thought the 2012 Police interview had been drudged up, McManus replied, “to answer you, that’s exactly what I said, ‘why the **** has this happened?’”
Adding that “from what my understanding is … the Police ran this case, what? Last three years? So they’ve cost the taxpayers of New South Wales nearly a million dollars. They turn around and go, ‘we need a scalp – take whoever you can’. And when this journalist has gone in and dug in to find out who the players were, I’m the easiest mark. And so they try to character assassinate me again.”