Battle of the food bloggers: Social media star awarded more than $300,000 over posts from rival reviewer

A fiery battle between two Sydney food reviewers has ended up in court with competitive eater Issac “Sir Eats-a-lot” Martin walking away with more than $300,000 in damages after being wrongly labelled a “paedophile” and a “racist” in a series of social media posts from a rival influencer.

On Monday, District Court Judge Judith Gibson handed down her decision in the defamation proceedings that came after Fouad “Abrakebabra” Najem – also known as Fred – posted a series of videos accusing Martin of making “obvious insults” about halal food on social media.

Food bloggers Issac “Sir Eats-a-lot” Martin and Fouad “Abrakebabra” Najem.Credit:Instagram

In a fundraiser launched by Najem to gain money for his legal representation in the case, the self-proclaimed “food review king” said he made the videos after Martin allegedly “compared halal meat to bacon”.

“The reason for this is that I was defending my Muslim brothers and sisters against derogatory comments made by him,” Najem wrote on his fundraising page.

“He compared halal meat to bacon and rudely attempted to educate the Islamic public on such. I spoke out against these obvious insults as he has worked with members of the Muslim community and clearly knows that pork is not halal.”

Martin has since denied he made any prejudicial comments on his page or otherwise.

“Throughout the course of his campaign the defendant on multiple times misquoted what I had said even though he was sharing the original artefact, implying and adding racism that was never originally there,” he told this masthead.

The civil proceedings focused on four videos posted by Najem earlier this year.

In the first video made on April 22, Najem labelled Martin “a paedophile and a racist”.

The next day Najem published a second video about him on his second Instagram Account, this time calling Martin a “pedo dog” and a racist who “attacks Muslims”. He also labelled Martin the “most hated person” in the food review industry.

At the end of this second video, Najem also posted a photoshopped picture of Martin at Bondi Beach with the word “RACIST” superimposed over him.

In the third video posted a few hours later, the photograph of Martin at Bondi Beach with the words “RACIST” superimposed was featured again.

On April 24, a fourth video was published by Najem who made “derogatory and highly offensive” statements about Martin’s wife.

Despite the civil case focusing on the four videos made across the three days, Martin claims he was targeted by about 14 videos across the six-month period.

As well as the videos, Martin received a direct message from Najem on April 24 who said he was “going to end [him]” and that he was a “racist dog” and that he was “going to destroy” Martin.

Martin reported the publications and messages to police on April 25-26 and sought an AVO against Najem before launching legal proceedings in July.

At the time the videos were posted, Martin had more than 210,000 followers on Instagram while Najem had about 20,000 followers on his main Instagram page and about 1400 followers on his second page.

After finding Najem engaged in the campaign to “attack and discredit the reputation of the plaintiff”, Judge Gibson awarded Martin a total of $300,000, including aggravated damages, plus interest of $6656. She also ordered Najem to pay Martin’s legal costs.

“Regrettably, examples of this ‘devastating harm’ are increasingly common, thanks largely to social media,” she said in her decision.

In a statement made to his social media page, Martin said he launched the defamation proceedings to “protect his family” and said the campaign from Najem was “inexcusable, vile and without reason”.

“Online trolls and cyberbullys (sic) must realise that they’re accountable,” he said.

Najem did not attend the court for the handing down of the decision. He did not respond to a request for comment.

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