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Erin Molan denied her mimicking of Asian accents was racist.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Molan,39,is suing theDaily Mail for defamation over an article and two tweets published in June 2020 which she says falsely implied she is racist,callous and arrogant.

The article and tweets in question refer to a May 30,2020 broadcast ofThe Continuous Call Team show on Sydney radio station 2GB in which Molan used the phrase “hooka looka mooka hooka fooka” in reference to the names of Pacific Islander NRL players. But in its defence,theDaily Maildug up more than 20 other examples of the show’s hosts,including Molan,using accents in a way it claims was racist.

Molan,who is employed by Nine – the owner of this masthead – is seeking aggravated damages from theDaily Mail. Fighting back tears on Tuesday,she told the court that after the stories were published she was in a “very bad place” and had received multiple death threats targeting herself and her young daughter.

She said she was “inconsolable” and “struggling to cope” after the articles were published and she received a “barrage of abuse” including from “a lot of people I respect and admire and a lot of prominent people”.

Under cross-examination from barrister Bruce McClintock,Molan was then played a series of clips of the show from 2019 in which she engaged in jokes,imitating Asian accents,with co-hosts including Ray Hadley and Darryl Brohman.

In the first of these clips,from April 1,2019,Molan imitates an Asian accent saying “I wuv you wery long time,wery handsome man”.

After playing the clip,Mr McClintock challenged Molan to repeat her words “in the way you said it on the program”. She said the words,but did so without the accent.

“That’s not what you said,is it? You changed the ‘r’ to a ‘w’,” Mr McClintock said. Molan agreed.

“You’re putting on,again,what I would say is a Chinese accent?”

Again,Molan agreed. But to his suggestion she was “imitating a Chinese prostitute”,she said no. Rather,she said she was quoting a movie – but “I coudn’t tell you” which one.

Asked why it was funny,she said:“I guess because my accent was so bad”.

She later accepted the movie reference wasFull Metal Jacket,and the line was spoken by a Vietnamese sex worker – but she likened it to imitating Julia Roberts’ character inPretty Woman.

Mr McClintock put to her that “what you were doing was peddling a really ugly racial stereotype of Chinese women for laughs,weren’t you?”

“Not at all,” she said.

She told the court she wasn’t sure what was funny about some of the jokes,and “it’s just part of banter on our show”.

She denied multiple times that the accents constituted mocking.

Molan said her role on the show was sometimes to question whether they were “going too far”,which is why on a number of occasions during the clips played to the court she said:“sorry,was that racist?” or “how is that,in this day and age,allowed?”

However,she said she never concluded the jokes were inappropriate.

A series of clips in which the show’s hosts repeatedly,exaggeratedly mispronounced names were not jokes at the expense of Pacific Islanders,she said,but about the commentators’ inability to say the names.

Molan said she trusted the audience to let the show know if anyone found their jokes were offensive. “Not one person ever expressed offence,and as you know in this day and age there are plenty of platforms to express offence,” she said.

She said she believed the only offence caused was by the reporting of her comments by theDaily Mail,which she said was “framing it with untruths”.

While she was prepared to apologise for the offence caused by theDaily Mail article,she told the court she wouldn’t apologise for her original “hooka looka mooka hooka fooka” comments because she didn’t think they were offensive.

The hearing continues.

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