Court shown video of threats to Covid commentator

Footage of disturbing threats against high-profile scientist Siouxsie Wiles has been shown in court as part of her legal action against her employer, the University of Auckland.

Despite those threats, the university did not seriously respond to the threats until more than two years after Wiles first complained of the harassment, her lawyer said.

Wiles, a microbiologist and science communicator, filed a complaint against her employer in 2021, arguing the university did not take enough steps to protect her against escalating harassment in relation to her public commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic.

The university denies unjustifiably disadvantaging Wiles or breaching its statutory obligations.

An Employment Court hearing began today in Auckland before Justice Joanna Holden.

Wiles’ lawyers showed a three-minute video to the court to illustrate the extreme threats against the scientist.

It showed a series of clips including one of conspiracy theorists Billy Te Kahika and Vinnie Eastwood describing her as “Satanic” to their online followers and making inflammatory statements about her in a public meeting.

There was also footage of Te Kahika and Eastwood filming Wiles in a hotel in Wellington, before confronting her over Covid-19 and vaccines.

“Make sure you pay … because you will pay,” Te Kahika says in the video.

A recording of a voicemail was played to the court in which an unnamed woman made a disturbing, profane threat against Wiles over her Covid-19 commentary.

“These are not just one-off or random threats, this is an escalating tsunami of threats and harassment,” lawyer Catherine Stewart said.

Wiles and her supporters, who were in the public gallery, sat in silence as the video played, some shaking their heads.

In her opening, Stewart said Wiles became a household name for her commentary on Covid-19, and went on to win major awards, including New Zealander of the Year.

Almost immediately after she began speaking out, the threats began, initially about her appearance but becoming increasingly vitriolic and violent, the court heard.

Wiles made her first complaint to the university in April 2020, about three months after her first media comment on Covid.

Stewart said the university failed to act on this complaint and many more. Over the following months, she and her colleagues sent 60 emails about the harassment and threats against her and colleagues, and held seven meetings with human resources staff and managers.

The university did not carry out a threat assessment until June 2022, and that did not include a basic threat assessment, Stewart said. It also took no steps when a conspiracy theorist came onto campus and confronted staff, she said.

During this period, the university used Wiles to promote its success, citing her in annual reports and promotional material as evidence of its academic excellence and critical role during a pandemic.

Yet privately, university leaders were urging Wiles to pull back from her public commentary, the court heard.

“Outwardly, the University of Auckland has clearly enjoyed the prestige of employing such an academic,” Stewart said.

“All at the same time while somewhat hypocritically urging her not to engage in public commentary herself.

“She has been subject to … hostility, singling out, and sustained … messages to pull back from her public commentary to the point that she has felt and continues to feel unsafe both mentally and physically.”

While she had received some support from colleagues, she had not been backed by people in the “top echelons” of the university, including vice-chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater and the dean of her department.

“These are the very people who ought to have been supporting her and ought to have had her back during the extraordinary and unprecedented time of a global pandemic.”

Wiles and a colleague, physicist and modeller Professor Shaun Hendy, filed complaints against the university in 2021. Hendy resolved his dispute with the university when he left for a new role a year ago.

The hearing is set down for three weeks.