Ex-Carlton president Luke Sayers has a new woman in his life as he seeks to defend a high-profile defamation case being brought by his former wife Cate.
Sayers, previously the CEO of PwC Australia, was seen on Wednesday afternoon strolling hand-in-hand with marketing manager Alexandra Elms.
The pair appeared cosy while walking through a park near Sayers’ multimillion-dollar East Melbourne apartment, joined by his daughter Claudia and a family dog.
Sayers, who declined to speak when approached by the Daily Mail, seemed relaxed as he and Elms sipped on coffee while swinging their embraced hands.
Details of the relationship are unclear, but they are close enough for Sayers’ other daughter Bronte to be following Elms on Instagram.
Elms previously dated V8 Supercars driver James Courtney in 2019, following his very public break-up with ex-wife Carys a year earlier.
The Courtneys’ split was tabloid fodder at the time as Carys had swiftly moved on with Stu Laundy of the famous Laundy Hotels family.
It’s unclear when Elms and Courtney called it quits, but Courtney was dating model and makeup artist Tegan Woodford by April 2021.
Ex-Carlton president Luke Sayers has a new woman in his life, marketing manager Alexandra Elms, as he seeks to defend a defamation case being brought by his former wife Cate
Sayers, previously the CEO of PwC Australia, was seen on Wednesday afternoon strolling hand-in-hand with marketing manager Alexandra Elms
Sayers declined to speak when approached by the Daily Mail
As for Sayers’ romantic history, a source told the Mail he had been in a relationship with another woman, also a Melbourne professional, which began after his split from Cate but ended last year.
As we interrupted Sayers and Elms’ cosy outing, the business executive showed no sign of strain as his legal stoush with Cate was moving up a gear.
Cate is suing the besieged former AFL club president for defamation.
She launched the Supreme Court action after a d*** pic scandal escalated into an ugly and public fallout which cost Sayers his marriage and his footy job.
Cate accuses her ex-husband in court documents of blaming her for publishing a picture of his penis on his X account at 7.40am on January 8, 2025.
The post also tagged a female executive from Bupa, one of Carlton’s principal sponsors.
Despite the AFL clearing Sayers, he stepped down as club president anyway.
‘Leading the Carlton Football Club has been one of the great honours and privileges of my life,’ he said in his departing statement on January 22 that year.
Details of the relationship are unclear, but they are close enough for Sayers’ daughter Bronte to be following Elms on Instagram
The pair were walking through a park near Sayers’ multimillion-dollar East Melbourne apartment. They were joined by one of Sayers’ daughters, Claudia (right)
Cate Sayers is suing the besieged former AFL club president for defamation
Elms was previously in a relationship with V8 Supercars driver James Courtney (left)
According to court documents, Cate alleges she was defamed after Sayers provided a statutory declaration to the AFL Commission’s integrity unit while he was being investigated over the photo.
Cate further claims she was shunned by the AFL community after Sayers lodged his stat dec with league investigators, it was alleged in court documents.
In a declaration of legal warfare, Cate’s lawyers allege Sayers revealed intimate details about her ‘sexual history and mental health’ which was purposely meant to paint his then-wife as ‘unstable, untrustworthy, erratic, mentally disturbed’.
Sayers, a director of consultancy firm Tenet, formerly known as Sayers Group, lodged his defence to the defamation proceedings on Wednesday.
In his defence, Sayers claims that Cate told him ‘let’s see how you get out of this one’ a day after the infamous image was posted on social media.
Elms (above, in her Instagram profile picture) is a Melbourne-based marketing manager
While he was cleared of wrongdoing by the AFL, Sayers (above, in March 2024) stood down as Carlton president after d*** pic scandal
Sayers also claims in court documents that the image was taken for medical purposes and that Cate knew about the medical reason for the photo, while also accusing her of accessing his phone and taking ’emails, text messages and photographs’.
It is further alleged that Cate swiped a ‘confidential and legally privileged’ draft statement to the AFL Integrity Unit to use as evidence against him, according to his defence lodged with the Supreme Court.
Sayers, who is pursuing a qualified privilege defence rather than a truth defence, also claims, via court documents, he was showering when the image was posted to X.
Sayers maintains his phone had been left in the bedroom of the hotel room the family was staying in during a trip to Italy at the time.
He also claimed his X account had been managed by personal assistants and that his wife was aware he had a professional relationship with the Bupa executive who was swept into the storm.
Sayers, in his defence, also claims that the statement he gave to the AFL ‘was true and correct to the best of his knowledge’.
‘[Documentation] supported his reasonable and genuine belief that there were grounds to suspect that Cate may have published the X post, though she denied doing so,’ Sayers’ defence states.
‘He did not knowingly publish any false information in, and stands by the contents of, the statutory declaration.’
In her first legal rocket fired last week, Cate, in her claim, alleges Sayers disclosed information that she suffered ‘from mental illness’ and was prescribed medication by her doctors which she ‘periodically refuses to take’.
It is also alleged Sayers breached Cate’s confidence by disclosing information regarding her ‘personal relationships with her family members’, documents reveal.
Cate, who founded a not-for-profit organisation which provides fitness programs for people with Down syndrome, is seeking damages for ‘significant distress, hurt and embarrassment’
Cate, who founded a not-for-profit organisation which provides fitness programs for people with Down syndrome, is seeking damages for ‘significant distress, hurt and embarrassment’ and argues she is entitled to an ‘award of equitable compensation’.
She has also requested to see a copy of the statutory declaration Sayers provided to the AFL as part of the claim.
During their investigations, it is alleged the AFL did not speak to Cate regarding accusations she had published the lewd photo on her then-husband’s X account.
‘The conclusion of the AFL inquiries, the Carlton process, AFL media statement and Carlton media statement legitimised the statutory declaration and implied to the public in answer to the question begged above… that Luke’s evidence should be trusted and that his wife, Cate, posted the X post,’ Cate’s Supreme Court claim states.
Sayers previously told the Daily Mail he had been ‘outraged’ by the alleged cyberattack and was ‘leaving no stone unturned in finding out who did this’
‘From shortly after the publication of the statutory declaration by Luke, and continuing thereafter, Cate has been shunned and avoided by persons she knew and had relationships with, who are involved with the AFL, Carlton, the game of AFL generally and others who knew Luke and Cate.’
Cate is understood to have learned of the ‘d*** pic’ via a close friend, while her ex-husband, with whom she shares four children, quickly deleted the post but not before it was screenshotted and widely circulated online.
‘Sorry, my account has been hacked, please ignore all posts,’ Sayers wrote at the time.
Sayers previously told the Daily Mail he had been ‘outraged’ by the alleged cyberattack and was ‘leaving no stone unturned in finding out who did this’.
The Supreme Court case will commence on Friday with a directions hearing.
