The judge who found Bruce Lehrmann likely raped his then-colleague Brittany Higgins was “distracted” by allegations of a parliamentary cover-up, a court has been told.
The former federal political staffer was found by Justice Michael Lee to have, on the balance of probabilities, raped Higgins in parliament house in 2019.
Lee’s decision was revealed in April 2024 after Lehrmann sued Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson for defamation over an interview with Higgins during which she aired the allegations.
Lehrmann has launched an appeal against the ruling in the Federal Court, arguing he was denied procedural fairness and should be awarded more than $20,000 in damages.
Wilkinson’s lawyer on Thursday urged the panel of judges to find her client had acted reasonably in broadcasting Higgins’ rape claims on The Project in 2021.
Lee found the journalist and Ten had acted unreasonably in publishing the allegations, in part because they should have seen the entwined allegations of a cover-up as implausible.
Higgins claimed she had reported the rape to her superiors at parliament house, including her boss then-senator Linda Reynolds, but little action was taken.
But Sue Chrysanthou SC argued the alleged cover-up should have been considered separately from Higgins’ account of sexual assault, because it was not connected to Lehrmann.
“His Honour was distracted by the so-called cover-up when he should have focused on the rape,” she said.
Lee found that Wilkinson wanted to tell the “explosive political story” of “an extraordinary cover-up” and did no further checking or research.
But Chrysanthou said Wilkinson had been shown “compelling” evidence of Higgins’ report of sexual assault and her contact with a rape crisis centre in Canberra.
“By the time of broadcast, there was no doubt in my client’s mind of contemporaneous reports of rape,” she said.
She contended Lee failed to consider dozens of emails sent to various political figures who were given the opportunity to respond to Higgins’ claims.
Any denials received were included in the broadcast, Chrysanthou said, as part of the “exemplary conduct” of her client and Ten.
“Over and over again, [Lee] criticises the belief in the allegations,” she told the court.
“They didn’t just blindly believe them, they asked people: ‘Is this right?’.”
The court was told Lehrmann, who has not been convicted of any offence related to Higgins’ allegations, was also emailed for his response on the Friday afternoon prior to the broadcast. He claimed he received the query only afterwards.
Lee was critical that the former Liberal staffer was not provided enough time to respond to the claims, but it was not Wilkinson’s job to contact him, Chrysanthou said.
She had been so “convinced he might respond” that she spent the night preparing interview questions, Chrysanthou told the court.
Wilkinson was an experienced journalist who discharged her responsibilities well but was excluded from some relevant emails and discussions of the final broadcast, the court was told.
Lehrmann has argued that, given the seriousness of the rape claims, Wilkinson should have personally made her own inquiries and properly notified him about Higgins’ allegation.
Chrysanthou encouraged the court to uphold Lee’s finding that the rape claims broadcast on The Project were substantially true.
Lehrmann is arguing the judgment should be overturned on four grounds, including that Lee used a definition of rape that was inconsistent with what an ordinary person would understand.
He maintains he did not sexually assault Higgins and a criminal case in 2022 was abandoned without any findings against him.
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National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
–AAP
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