TRANSCRIPT
“His Honour has found Bruce Lehrmann is a rapist. Bruce Lehrmann is a rapist.”
Network Ten lawyer Justin Quill - finally free to say the words at the heart of a 14-month long defamation case which has gripped the nation.
Bruce Lehrmann launched the case against the network and journalist Lisa Wilkinson in an attempt to restore his reputation.
Instead, he's suffered a devastating loss, with Justice Michael Lee ruling on Monday ((15 April)) that the former political staffer raped Brittany Higgins inside Parliament House in March 2019.
“Mr Lehrmann was hell-bent on having sex with a woman he A, found sexually attractive; B, had been mutually passionately kissing and touching; C, had encouraged to drink; and D, knew had reduced inhibitions because she was very drunk. In his pursuit of gratification he did not care one way or the other whether Ms Higgins understood or agreed to what was going on.”
Criminal proceedings against Mr Lehrmann were postponed in June 2022, after Lisa Wilkinson gave an acceptance speech at the Logies Awards ceremony.
That speech referenced her interview with Brittany Higgins for Channel 10's program "The Project", in which Ms Higgins aired her claims - that Mr Lehrmann raped her in the Parliament House office of then-defence minister Linda Reynolds after a night out.
In her speech, Ms Wilkinson thanked Ms Higgins for trusting her and the team of the Project, and helping to change the conversation around sexual abuse allegations.
Mr Lehrmann's lawyers successfully argued that the speech interfered with their client's right to a fair trial.
A rescheduled criminal trial eventually began in October 2022, but was dismissed within a few weeks because of juror misconduct.
A later retrial was dropped in December that year, out of concerns for Ms Higgins' mental health.
As a result, no findings were made against Bruce Lehrmann in a criminal trial, and he has always denied the allegations.
However on Monday Justice Lee found his decision to then launch defamation proceedings to salvage his reputation had the opposite effect.
“Having escaped the lion's den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat.”
Justice Lee stressed that hid finding Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins is based on a balance of probabilities, a lower threshold for civil proceedings than for a criminal trial.
He found Mr Lehrmann was not entitled to vindicate his reputation, despite being identifiable in Ten's report.
The judge also slammed Mr Lehrmann as an unreliable, dishonest witness who deliberately lied.
“To remark that Mr Lehrmann is a poor witness is an exercise in understatement. As I'll explain his attachment to the truth was a tenuous one, informed not by faithfulness to his affirmation but by fashioning his responses in what he perceived to be his forensic interests. Ms Brittany Higgins - Mr Lehrmann's accuser - was also an unsatisfactory witness who made some allegations that made her a heroine to one group of partisans but when examined forensically have undermined her credibility to a disinterested fact-finder.”
Justice Lee said that Ms Higgins was an "unreliable historian" of the night in question.
However he found any incorrect statements made to the police in 2019 were not inconsistent with remarks being made by a genuine victim of sexual assault.
The judge also had words for Ms Wilkinson, saying if she had thought her speech through as a journalist rather than champion of Ms Higgins, she should have recognised its legal dangers.
Ms Wilkinson has previously told an independent inquiry into the prosecution of Mr Lehrmann that she was not warned of the risk by Network Ten or the ACT's director of public prosecutions, despite seeking advice ahead of the event.
After Monday's ruling, she thanked those who had supported her throughout the trial.
“Today the Federal Court has found that I published a true story about a rape in a federal minister's office at Parliament House in March of 2019. I sincerely hope this judgement gives strength to women across the country.”
Ten's lawyer Justin Quill wouldn't comment on whether the network had adequately supported Ms Wilkinson.
Instead he emphasised the strength of the legal process, saying the decision should be a warning to others.
“This is an unmitigated disaster for Bruce Lehrmann. And I've got to say, it's a warning to all other potential applicants or plaintiffs who might want to try reinvent history or make a quick buck, who might want to come to court and con the court as to their version of events. You can come up with a con that might take you through a T-V interview, or an interview with your bosses, or down at the pub with your mates. But when you come to the court and you are cross-examined, and forensically examined, you can't get away with it.”
