24 and has appeared on Ten's The 7pm Project. From April 2016 until July 2018, Cannane was ABC's Europe Correspondent, based in London before joining the ABC's Investigations Unit as a reporter. In May 2021, Cannane was named as the new chief of the ABC's Europe bureau. Defamation case In September 2016, Cannane published Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia'', which prompted a defamation suit to be brought against Cannane and HarperCollins by doctors John Gill and John Herron who were involved in the Australian Chelmsford deep sleep scandal. In his book, Cannane referenced the Chelmsford Royal Commission which exposed practices which took place at the Chelmsford Private Hospital. In 2018, HarperCollins unsuccessfully applied to have the case thrown out due to the unreasonable expectation of Cannane being required to prove the findings of the royal commission. After an eight-week trial which was held entirely on Microsoft Teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lawsuit was dismissed in late 2020 with Justice Jayne Jagot ruling in favour of Cannane and HarperCollins with Gill and Herron ordered to pay costs. According to Jagot, as a medical practitioner Herron "had no residual reputation to be protected" while she said Gill was "held in very low estimation by the relevant sector" prior to the release of Cannane's book. Jagot also accused Herron and Gill of attempting to "rewrite history". The judgement also stated that Cannane had established a defence of qualified privilege. Gill and Herron appealed the decision to the full Federal Court in August 2021 because they believed the use 26 year old reports prepared by dead expert witnesses from a Royal Commission doesn't contribute to a fair trial upon their behalf. Additionally Gill and Herron's appeal also relied upon the idea that Cannane and Harper Collins should not have been granted qualified privilege as a defence against defamation. In 2022, the Federal Court heard the appeal and unanimously agreed that, contrary to Justice Jagot's original findings, Cannane's defence of qualified privilege was not justified and therefore would not be available to him and HarperCollins as a defence against defamation. The Federal Court of appeal, consisting of justices Steven Rares, Michael Lee and Micheal Wigney, agreed unanimously that fundamental errors were made in the orignal trial by Jagot and that this would in turn justify a retrial. The Federal Court's main contention with Jagot's original findings was that