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Underbelly: legal notes

  • Underbelly's original launch date of February 08, 2008 was cancelled on legal advice.
  • On February 12, 2008 a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Betty King banned the television and internet broadcast of Underbelly in the state of Victoria until the conclusion of a murder trial of an unidentified man set to begin on March 31, 2008. Nine was also ordered to remove character profiles from the series' webiste.
  • Nine opposed the original successful request from the Crown prosecutor to ban the series and had their appeal dismissed. They were subsequently order to pay the costs of the appeal for the Office of Public Prosecutions.
  • The ban initiated a flood of interest in the downloading and trading of bootleg episodes, many copies alleged to be sourced from promotional DVDs originating from the network itself.
  • The original court ruling was later revised to prohibit all Victorians, not just Nine, from transmitting or exhibiting the series
  • The broadcast of Underbelly is being used by Tony Mokbel to fight his extradition from Greece, arguing it makes it impossible for him to receive a fair trial.
  • A lawyer acting for Carl Williams has suggested the series could affect his client's appeal
  • The book on which the series was based, Andrew Rule's Leadbelly, originally published in 2004, was not banned and has since become a bestseller.
  • The individuals portrayed by Alex Dimitriades, Ian Bliss, Kym Gyngell, and Fletcher Humphrys cannot be named by Order of the Supreme Court of Victoria
  • George Kapiniaris' character is credited only as "Lawyer" despite early publicity that did give his name. He goes unnamed after legal squables between real-life criminal lawyer George Defteros and producers over allegations of potential defamation.
  • The DVDs of Underbelly were also banned from sale in Victoria. In the rest of Australia, the DVDs quickly became one of the most successful releases in history with many retailers selling out on the strength of pre-orders alone.
  • The reason for behind the ban on Underbelly's broadcast in Victoria, the trial of Evangelos Goussis for the March 2004 murder of Lewis Moran, concluded in late May of 2008 with the conviction of Evangelos Goussis. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Jeremy Rapke QC, recommeded against broadcast of the series until the conclusion of other trials linked to events and persons portrayed in the series. The ban remains in effect as of June 2008.
  • A state government inquiry was launched into the broadcast-ban breaching screening of Underbelly in the Melbourne Juvenile Justice Centre. It has been alleged a staff member smuggled in pirated DVDs and that a relative of one of the convicted killers depicted in the series was among those who saw the series.
  • In August of 2008, 39-year-old Roberta Williams, ex-wife of Carl Williams, came under the scrutiny of the Australian Taxation Office, and was charged with nine counts of failing to lodge a tax return from 1998 to 2006.