Expelled MP Moira Deeming says she wants to rejoin the Liberal Party after the leader who banished her was found to have defamed her.

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto lost the Federal Court battle on Thursday, after Justice David O’Callaghan ruled he did defame Deeming by implying she was associated with Nazis.

Pesutto made the defamatory comments in media interviews and a party expulsion motion following a March 2023 rally Deeming attended.

Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals in May 2023, said she wanted to be let back into the party.

“I was unjustly expelled,” she said on Thursday afternoon.

“I have every right to be there. All the accusations that were made about me, they were just disproven in court.”

Deeming launched the legal action against Pesutto in December 2023, claiming he defamed her by suggesting or implying she was a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser following the Let Women Speak rally.

The trans-critical event in March 2023, which Deeming addressed and helped organise, was attended by men in black who performed the Nazi salute on the steps of state parliament.

O’Callaghan found Pesutto defamed Deeming in a media release, two radio interviews, a press conference and in a party expulsion motion following the rally.

Pesutto implied she was unfit to be in the parliamentary Liberal Party because she was associated with Nazis, the judge ruled.

He also implied Deeming participated in the rally and knowingly worked with other organisers to help promote a Nazi agenda and white supremacist views, O’Callaghan found.

“The imputations that I have found to have been carried are very serious ones,” he said in his judgment.

“They were inherently likely, using mass media to communicate a message to the general public in Victoria, to cause serious harm to Mrs Deeming’s reputation.”

O’Callaghan determined Pesutto’s defences of public interest, honest opinion and qualified privilege had failed.

He also rejected Pesutto’s submissions that Deeming already had a bad reputation prior to the rally.

“The evidence established that she, like all politicians, has her detractors on the other ‘side’ of politics,” the judgment said.

“That may be a reflection of what nowadays passes for political debate, but it is not … evidence of the fact that Mrs Deeming has hateful views or gives succour to them.”

The judge ordered $300,000 in damages be awarded to Deeming.

Pesutto was not in court to hear the decision, while Deeming was supported by her husband and a group of women.

The group cheered after the judge left the bench, while Deeming’s husband gave her a hug.

Asked afterwards if Pesutto should remain leader of the Victorian Liberals, Deeming said it wasn’t up for her to decide.

“I don’t think he has proven himself to be trustworthy but it’s not up to me to make that call,” she said.

Pesutto stared down a possible leadership coup earlier in October, but a spill motion was not ultimately put to the partyroom after MPs were unable to agree on a replacement candidate.

Pesutto could face another leadership challenge following Thursday’s outcome.

However, he has vowed to stay on, despite what he said was “obviously a very disappointing outcome”.

“I’ve always been a fighter and I’ve always been a fighter for the right reasons and for the right people, the Victorian people,” he said.

“That’s why I will continue in this role. Now, more than ever, when it is so clear on so many indicators that our state is headed in the wrong direction, that we need leaders who have that fight in them, leaders who will stand up and be accountable, and always put the interests of our state first.

Deeming was initially suspended from the Liberals in March 2023 then expelled two months later.

-with AAP