Former Carlton president Luke Sayers says that his estranged wife Cate told him words to the effect of “let’s see how you get out of this one” after a lewd photo was posted to his X account, according to court documents.

Mr Sayers is locked in a bitter legal battle with Ms Sayers after she filed a lawsuit in the Victorian Supreme Court alleging that she was defamed in a statutory declaration he made to the AFL during an investigation into a photo of his penis that was posted to his social media account in January last year.

He has denied being responsible for the post, which tagged an executive of a Carlton sponsor, and says he was in the shower at the time.

In his defence filed with the Supreme Court this week, Mr Sayers alleged that a day after the incident, Ms Sayers said to him words to the effect of “let’s see how you get out of this one”.

The Herald Sun has reported that Ms Sayers will bring a claim of “substantive malice and improper purpose”, with the matter to return to court on Friday.

The photo was deleted from social media 15 minutes after it appeared.

“Sorry my account has been hacked – please ignore all posts,” a follow-up post said.

Mr Sayers took part in an AFL investigation, which concluded, based on all evidence, that his account had been compromised.

Despite being cleared of wrongdoing by the governing body, Mr Sayers stepped down from the Carlton board later that day.

Mr Sayers provided a statutory declaration to two lawyers acting for the AFL and Carlton in their separate investigations.

Ms Sayers has sued over the statutory declaration and said, in a writ filed in the Supreme Court earlier this year, Mr Sayers accused her of posting the explicit images “without his knowledge or authority” and “shamelessly” publishing false information about her.

She is seeking damages and said it led to her being shunned by people within the AFL, Carlton and others she knew.

In his defence filed in the Supreme Court this week, Mr Sayers said he did not personally operate his X account, which was managed by his long-term personal assistant.

He said the photo had been taken for “medical purposes”.

Mr Sayers alleged, in his defence, that in March last year – two months after the photo was posted to X – Ms Sayers used his passcode to download “a large volume of emails, text messages and photographs which included a confidential and legally privileged draft of the statutory declaration”.

He argued that the statutory declaration was provided to AFL general counsel Stephen Meade and Christopher Townshend KC, who was heading an internal Carlton investigation.

“At all relevant times he has sought to maintain confidentiality in the statutory declaration and its contents so as to protect the privacy and emotional health and wellbeing of Luke, Cate,” his lawyers said in his defence.

Mr Sayers argued that prior to the proceedings in the Supreme Court, the public did not know about the existence of the statutory declaration or its content.

He said that he signed the statement “in order to discharge his obligations and protect his reputation and interests” and was “compelled to respond” after being accused of posting the lewd picture on X.

“The information contained in the statutory declaration was, to the best of his knowledge, true and correct, and 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,” the court documents prepared by his solicitors said.

In his defence filed with the court, Mr Sayers said that in his declaration he described the circumstances that led to the medical photograph being taken and outlined the people who had knowledge of his social media and phone passwords.

He said he was careful to “avoid any direct allegation” that he ex-wife had published the picture to X

And he claimed that the contents of the statutory declaration would not have been known publicly had she not sued him.