Cricketing superstar Chris Gayle awarded $300,000 in damages after penis claims

A jury found Chris Gayle had not exposed himself to a female massage therapist at the 2015 Cricket World Cup. Photo / Getty

West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle has been awarded $300,000 in damages after an NSW court found he had been defamed by a series of articles claiming he had exposed his genitals to a female massage therapist during the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

Gayle sued Fairfax Media over the articles published in January 2016, claiming he had exposed himself to Leanne Russell in the West Indies' dressing room during a training session in Sydney.

In October last year a jury of three women and one man determined it was not true that Gayle exposed his genitals to Russell and indecently propositioned her.

The jury also found Fairfax was motivated by malice when it published the allegations in a series of articles in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times.

Earlier, Russell gave tearful evidence that she walked into the change room looking for a sandwich and found Gayle wearing a towel.

She claimed he pulled the towel down, partially exposing his penis and said, "are you looking for this?"

"I saw the top half of his penis, apologies, and I therefore shielded my view and left the change room," she told the court.

Russell said afterwards she fled into the stands, "very upset."

"I was crying uncontrollably, I was crying like a child," she said.

"I was upset because of what Chris had done because we had known each other for 10 years and jokes of that nature meant nothing to him but upset me greatly."

Gayle gave evidence denying the allegations and said he was never in the change room wearing a towel.

His teammate, Dwayne Smith who was also in the change room at the time of the alleged incident, also denied Gayle exposed himself to Russell.