Consumer advocate Michael Fraser must find A$300,000 to pay aggravated damages to a senior executive of Commonwealth Bank.The Supreme Court of New South Wales on Friday ruled in favour of Brendan French, CBA's head of customer relations in the retail division.Justice Lucy McCallum set up the ruling thus:"From late 2012, French's occupation of that role (and nothing else) made him the unsuspecting target of Michael Fraser. "Styling himself The Arbitrator, Fraser claims the vocation of 'keeping big business honest'. Under that pious mantle and purportedly in wreak of unspecified wrongs done by the bank to unnamed customers, Fraser has subjected French to a hellish two years of bullying and harassment."Publicly, Fraser has mounted a wide-reaching and wholly unfounded attack on French's reputation."In a disturbingly more sinister private campaign, Fraser has bombarded French with hundreds of emails, texts and voice messages, many containing thinly-veiled threats evidently motivated by homophobia and other senseless vitriol."The judge had little patience for the respondent, Fraser."To make matters worse, Fraser has used these proceedings as a forum for repeating and aggravating the defamation," she said. "He initially pleaded a defence of truth to some of the defamatory imputations specified by French. The defence was scandalous. It specified no facts, matters or circumstances remotely capable of proving the truth of the imputations. It is difficult to understand how his solicitor could have seen fit to certify the pleading. "The defence was abandoned (with no explanation) shortly before the hearing, at which point Fraser consented to the entry of judgment against him including mandatory 'take-down' injunctions, injunctions against future publication, damages in an amount to be assessed and costs. "It ought to be noted that a breach of those injunctions would amount to contempt of court, potentially punishable by imprisonment. "To be clear, what that means is that Fraser now admits defaming French without justification and accepts that he must not do so again. All that remains is to quantify the damages."Justice McCallum found no doubt that damages were warranted and did not really explain the $300,000 award.Her reasons for awarding damages are instructive."It is permissible to have regard to Fraser's whole conduct to the extent that it has aggravated the hurt suffered by French as a result of the publications, which undoubtedly it has. There can be no doubt that most if not all of Fraser's conduct towards French was improper and unjustifiable," she said."Fraser's conduct could probably also be characterised as lacking in bona fides, especially since he abandoned his defence and capitulated to the entry of judgment against him. However, without having heard from Fraser and not knowing the state of his mind, I would stop short of making that additional finding, which is not necessary in any event."I have regard to the fact that, although many people plainly reacted seriously to what they read, the tone and content of the publications would have prompted some to dismiss Fraser's missives as irrational rants. The imputations would not have had the impact of an imputation published