Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann says he learnt he was accused of rape on the day an interview with his accuser aired on The Project, and didn’t see its journalists’ attempts to ask for comment until he was in a mental health facility a week later.

On the second day of his high-stakes defamation trial against Network Ten and its former journalist Lisa Wilkinson, Mr Lehrmann, 28, spent about six hours in the witness box.