One moment he’s engaged, next he isn’t... but Rupert Murdoch’s reported love life has left a top judge unimpressed.

Reports of the media mogul’s travel plans with the woman with whom he reportedly planned to spend “the second half of our lives” brought a sharp comment from Judge Eric Davis after lawyers for Dominion Voting System sought to have Murdoch testify in court when its defamation case against Fox Corp begins in mid-April.

Fox Corp had contended that his “age and his lack of direct control over the election coverage” meant the court should rely solely on the deposition he made in January. Davis however said Murdoch appeared to be fit to travel to Delaware for the trial, given that he had publicly discussed plans to travel after announcing that he will marry for the fifth time.

In Murdoch’s New York Post, Cindy Adams wrote that the proprietor chose the Asscher-cut diamond solitaire presented to 66-year-old Ann Lesley Smith on St Patrick’s Day.

But this week Vanity Fair reported that the 92-year-old had “abruptly called off” his engagement to the former San Francisco police chaplain and widow of country singer, radio and TV executive Chester Smith, who he had met at his Californian vineyard.

The details of their meeting are perhaps irrelevant now – Murdoch is quoted that he met her “when there was 200 people at my vineyard” and he had later called her – with “sources close to Vanity Fair” saying that the wedding was off, perhaps because of “Murdoch’s discomfort with Smith’s evangelical views”.

What Judge Davis will make of it all remains to be known.

• Meanwhile, the judge hearing News Corp chairman Lachlan Murdoch’s defamation case against Crikey owner Private Media says he is considering sending the parties back to mediation after a request for a new defence.

Justice Michael Wigney said allowing the defence to be connected with the case against Fox News in the US could delay the case until October.

Private Media’s defence attorney Michael Hodge said materials now being presented to the US case “went to the heart of Lachlan Murdoch’s reputation”.

Pictured: How the New York Post broke the news