The ABC and one of its senior reporters have been hit with a court order preventing the publication of alleged “vile” texts obtained from the former partner of an Australian athlete.A court has heard the messages from a group chat involving three high-profile sport stars allegedly included jokes, insults of named people “and crude descriptions of sexual acts and domestic violence”.NSW Supreme Court Justice Anthony McGrath last week granted a temporary injunction stopping the broadcaster and journalist Marnie Vinall from reporting on the messages.He ruled there was a “very strong claim” to restrain the news outlet from publishing the leaked texts as they were “taken from them without their permission”.The court has heard the three athletes – given pseudonyms AB, CD and EF – texted each other for eight years in a group chat that held hundreds or thousands of messages.AB was previously in a relationship with a woman named GH, Justice McGrath’s judgment states, which ended in “acrimonious” fashion in 2025. At some point during their relationship and “unbenownst to AB” GH accessed the group chat on AB’s old phone and took a screenshot of some messages in 2025.Two of the men involved in the chat are married and all three are “highly credentialed in their sport”, according to the published court judgment.They claimed in the urgent court hearing the messages would “likely lead to serious harm to their reputation and standings as well as financial interests”.The men feared the texts had been “significantly decontextualised and are likely to be misconstrued” if released to the public, the court heard.GH claims AB had given her the password to his hold phone, the court heard, but “AB says that he did not give GH the password to his mobile phone, never gave her permission to access his messages and never gave her access to his mobile phone or his password at any point during their relationship”.“AB says that he is unaware of the manner in which GH obtained information from or copies of information from his devices,” the judgment states. “AB says that he believes that any information obtained from his mobile phone was obtained by GH without his knowledge or permission.”Justice McGrath said GH retained AB’s old phone once they ceased living together in 2025. She later was scrolling through her camera roll in 2026 and saw the photograph she had taken “which upset her” and later reached out to a person referred to in the texts saying she held a “strong moral objection” to their contents.GH and two people named in the texts met with award-winning journalist Vinall in 2026.“The two people referred to in the text messages in the Group Chat have informed Ms Vinall that they do not object to the publication of the contents of those messages,” the judgment states.Vinall was shown the screenshot and in 2026 GH said she found AB’s old phone in a moving box and accessed it to show time stamps to the journalist and the ABC’s managing editor of national news Sam Clark.Vinall called EF to speak with him about “some vile text messages” in which he was allegedly involved and on that same day messaged EF, AB and CD with further details.She also phoned the media contacts at two sporting clubs and the relevant sporting body of the athletes seeking a response for a story set. The athletes engaged high-profile Sydney law firm Giles George to act for them in requesting an injunction over the story owing to claims of a “breach of confidence”.After a hearing , Justice McGrath ruled ruled the messages could not be disclosed “until further order”.He rejected the ABC’s legal argument that the messages should be characterised as “trivial tittle-tattle” and not the sort of information upon which the court should intervene.The judge found there was a “serious question to be tried” in relation to the men’s claims of breach of confidence.He also made a non-publication order ahead of a further court hearing in August.An ABC spokesperson said it, Vinall and another person fought against the order and said the broadcaster “stands by the conduct of its journalists acting in the public interest”. “The ABC is also concerned about the broader ramifications this decision may have on investigative journalism and the public’s right to know,” they said.