Tim Ferguson, best known as part of the comedy group Doug Anthony Allstars (DAAS) along with Richard Fidler and Paul McDermott, carried out what has been described as an “obscene bullying campaign” against a journalist.
On Tuesday, reporter Candance Sutton wrote an account of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Ferguson, which she describes as “psychologically debilitating”.
In 1990, Sutton recalls she received a letter from Ferguson in response to a review she published about a comedy show he was involved in.
It would be the first of many.
The letters featured denigrating, highly sexualised caricatures, where Sutton was represented with breasts and genitals, and enormous teeth. He would sign off his letters with lines such as, “Love and breast cancer,” “Love and leukaemia” and referred to Sutton as a “f*cking idiot”.
Is workplace bullying the next frontier in the #MeToo movement? We discuss on Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues below.
The comedian also described her with abbreviated derogatory terms, such as: “slts”, “y fckng twat”, “cnt”, “whre”, “mthrfckr” and “bagful of trds”.
More letters were sent, and they became increasingly obscene. One, which Sutton has produced a copy of, read “… ‘Candace’ we squeal, our buttocks flummoxing in uncontrolled agitation, small gaseous secrets flowing from our little brown parentheses…
“We have penned a slight tune in your name… We have sung the song to our friends and they have laughed uproariously about it.”
The letter was signed, “Cunnilingus and the Crimea, DAAS.”
Next, Ferguson drew a picture of the Sun Herald reporter with large, unusually shaped breasts, straddling a man who was lying on the floor.