Lisa Wilkinson could face investigation after Logies speech causes rape trial delay

Lisa Wilkinson could face an investigation after her Logies speech caused the trial of Brittany Higgins’ alleged rapist to be delayed.

Lisa Wilkinson could face an investigation after her publicity around her Logies speech caused the trial of Brittany Higgins’ alleged rapist to be delayed, a legal expert says.

Australian Bar Association president Dr Matthew Collins told Seven’s Sunrise on Wednesday that The Project host may be in serious hot water following scathing comments by ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum as she indefinitely postponed the trial of Bruce Lehrmann.

“It’s certainly possible that the authorities will be looking at speech she made to the Logies and assessing that speech went against the standard which applies in this branch of the law,” he said.

“That standard is, did anything that she did have a tendency to interfere with the administration of justice?”

Under the ACT Criminal Code, a person can be charged with an offence if they publish “something that could cause a miscarriage of justice in a legal proceeding”.

Doing so intentionally carries a maximum penalty of 1000 penalty units, 10 years imprisonment or both, while doing so recklessly carries a maximum penalty of 700 penalty units, seven years imprisonment or both.

“I guess Lisa Wilkinson will be reading this closely today,” The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen wrote on Twitter, sharing the text of the law.

Lisa Wilkinson speaks at the 2022 Logie Awards. Picture: Channel 9

The defence team for Mr Lehrmann, who is accused of raping Ms Higgins at Parliament House in March 2019, requested a temporary stay in the wake of Wilkinson’s speech at the Logie Awards on Sunday.

In her speech accepting a Silver Logie for her interview with Ms Higgins on The Project, Wilkinson “completely obliterated” the line between an allegation and a finding of guilt, Justice McCallum told the court on Tuesday.

“The implicit premise of [Wilkinson’s speech] is to celebrate the truthfulness of the story she exposed,” she said in the hearing.

Mr Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty and has given a police interview stating he did not have sex with Ms Higgins.

Justice McCallum said she was making the order to delay the planned trial start date on June 27 with “gritted teeth”. “Unfortunately … the recent publicity [of the speech] does, in my view, change the landscape,’’ she said.

“Because of its immediacy, its intensity and its capacity to obliterate the important distinction between an allegation that remains untested at law. For those reasons, regrettably and with gritted teeth, I have concluded that the trial date of 27 June towards which the parties have been carefully steering must be vacated.”

Bruce Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to raping Brittany Higgins.

Justice McCallum said Wilkinson was given a “clear and appropriate” warning by prosecutors against making public statements about the case during a conference on June 15 to discuss evidence she was expected to give at the trial as a witness.

A note of the meeting by the Director of Public Prosecutions said at the conclusion, Wilkinson was asked if she had any questions.

She raised that she was nominated for a Logie and didn’t think she would win because it was organised by a rival network.

She then started to read the speech she planned to give but the DPP intervened to stop her and said he had no power to approve or provide advice on the speech.

“We are not speech editors,” Shane Drumgold told Ms Wikinson.

“We have no power to approve or prohibit any public comment, that is the role of the court. [We] can advise, however, that defence can reinstitute a stay application in the event of publicity.”

Justice McCallum said “notwithstanding that clear and appropriate warning”, Wilkson gave a speech “in which she openly referred to and praised the complainant in the present trial”.

“Unsurprisingly, the award, and the content of the speech have been the subject of further commentary,” she said.

Lisa Wilkinson with Brittany Higgins. Picture: Instagram

Justice McCallum said that Wilkinson’s speech amounted to saying, “Not only do I believe her, but she’s brave and extraordinary and she’s the most important thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m proud of bringing forward her allegation.”

Speaking to Sunrise, Dr Collins said members of mainstream media “understand the risk inherent in talking about cases which are about to go to trial before courts, particularly serious, high-profile cases”.

“So clearly this was ill-advised,” he said.

“The whole point is that everybody in our community facing a serious charge like this is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and that means that going into the courtroom there should be no preconceptions one way or the other, so that the jury just sits and focuses really keenly on the evidence as it unfolds in the witness box, and puts out of their mind anything which they might have seen in the media, or God forbid and often far worse, in social media.”

In her decision, Justice McCallum noted that delaying the trial “will not serve the interests of anyone”. “Delay has a corrosive effect on evidence,” she said.

Dr Collins said it could be around six months before the trial could begin, noting Justice McCallum had said on Tuesday she hoped it could be before the end of the year.

Asked whether Mr Lehrmann could get a fair trial, Dr Collins said that would be “the question the judge will be considering when the court reconvenes to talk about when the trial should resume”.

“One would expect that with that passage of time, the current media frenzy of the last few days will die down,” he said.

“What happens in these cases that judges tell juries that they must focus on what happens in the hearing room and put out their mind anything that might have seen or heard in the media. With the passage of time that does become easier.”

Channel 10 has been contacted for comment.

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