In short:
In text messages, senior Channel Seven manager Mark Llewellyn repeatedly references a fictitious character caving someone's head in.
They were sent to Taylor Auerbach when he was working as a producer on Seven's Spotlight.
Auerbach didn't convey his distress with the texts at the time and dismissed them with humour.
A senior Channel Seven manager called a Jewish staff member "Ann Frankenstein" in anti-Semitic text messages and said "the character in a play we've written" wanted to bash his head in with a cricket bat, a Four Corners investigation has uncovered.
The text messages were sent to producer Taylor Auerbach during his four years working at Spotlight by executive producer Mark Llewellyn, who was forced to resign from the network in April after the program became embroiled in scandal.
Warning: This story contains coarse language.
The messages formed part of Auerbach's workers compensation claim against Seven.
In one message, described by Auerbach's lawyer as "anti-Semitic", Mark Llewellyn mocks Auerbach's striped shirt, as looking like concentration camp pyjamas.
"Why is he wearing the holocaust Jim Jams?"
Taylor Auerbach is Jewish. Llewellyn, who was the most senior manager on the current affairs program, followed up, writing that Auerbach was:
"Ann Frankenstein."
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Another series of messages repeatedly refers to violent acts, with the caveat that they are coming from "the character in a play we're writing".
"Is that you c**t? I am gunna cave your head in. Said the character in the play we are writing".
"The character in a play we're written [sic] wants to bash your head the f**k in with a cricket bat 🏏"
In reference to a blue pencil, Llewellyn writes:
"Or the red pencil. Or purple or LGBTQI rainbow pencil. Whichever cuts your prolix prose to digestible chunks before I cave your head in with my heavy F**king iPhone said the character in the play we're writing."
At the time Auerbach did not convey his distress at these messages and dismissed them with humour.
Llewellyn said in a statement, "I categorically deny engaging in any conduct that is anti-Semitic or which constitutes bullying, discrimination or misconduct".
Seven knew about the text messages in August last year, eight months before Llewellyn resigned.
The texts were not provided to Four Corners by Taylor Auerbach, who is one of many former Seven staff who have signed non-disclosure agreements with the media company after making complaints about how they were treated.
They form part of a broader Four Corners investigation into Seven, following the Spotlight scandal in April.
It was revealed in the Federal Court that the program paid for a year's rent for accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann and that Auerbach had used his boss's company credit card to pay for Thai masseuses for Mr Lehrmann while trying to woo him into agreeing to be interviewed by Spotlight.
The court was also told that Mr Lehrmann invoiced Seven for money spent on cocaine and sex workers, but Mr Lehrmann and the network denied this. There was no suggestion that Llewellyn approved the payment of drugs or sex workers, and he has said in a statement to Four Corners that he did not know about this alleged expenditure.
"A narrative has been created that it is simply untrue. That narrative has now been accepted by many as fact. I absolutely rejected those allegations then and I continue to reject them now. Ultimately, I resigned from the show I founded and loved, and no longer work with the team I adored," Llewellyn said in the statement.
That scandal led to the resignations of not just Llewellyn, but also network news director Craig McPherson and the early departure of Seven CEO James Warburton.
The language used by Llewellyn was often deeply disparaging for a person who was in a senior management role.
In a photograph, Llewellyn can be seen with a handwritten note to Auerbach that he had signed which says:
"F**king lost the TALENT"
"You c**t!"
"The talent" refers to a person Auerbach was proposing to interview for a story.
In another email written to Auerbach and an editor at the program, Llewellyn says, "Listen, you double-handed knob, I am untouchable after last night's ratings and intend to fly very close to the f**king sun with no sense of humility …"
In an Instagram post on his @archiebombora account, Llewellyn refers to Taylor Auerbach as an "unsightly growth".
"I will be off Insta for a while while I have an unsightly growth removed from the back of my head @taylorauerbach91."
In other messages, Auerbach commiserated with a colleague.
"The abuse and the bullying is actually getting too much for me," Auerbach told the colleague.
"I hate every single living minute of my job."
Seven declined repeated requests for an interview. It didn’t say why it kept Llewellyn in his job for eight months after discovering these messages. However, in response to questions about the culture at Seven generally, a spokesperson said “inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated at Seven”.
"Under new management, we have refreshed and recommunicated our policies and procedures and we encourage all Seven team members to call out any behaviour that does not reflect the values of Seven."
There had been warning signs about Mark Llewellyn's behaviour before. A decade earlier, when he ran Seven's precursor to Spotlight, Sunday Night, he was stood down as executive producer of the program after assaulting a producer.
Four Corners has obtained this picture of the producer right after Llewellyn attacked him in his office in October 2014, ripping the entire front of his shirt.
We've spoken to multiple Sunday Night staff who worked that day who were shocked at what took place.
Llewellyn was moved off the program in November 2014, but stayed at Seven for a time.
He was brought back to run Spotlight in mid-2020 after Sunday Night was axed in 2019.
Note: Louise Milligan and Nick Farrow previously worked for Channel Seven.
Watch the full Four Corners investigation into Channel Seven on ABC iview.
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