By Michaela Whitbourn and Kate McClymont
Fresh from his defamation defeat, Bruce Lehrmann is facing legal action over the northern beaches pad he lived in rent-free under a deal with the Seven Network.
Lady Gaenor Meakes, the owner of the Balgowlah property where the former federal Liberal staffer lived until recently, is pursuing Lehrmann in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The matter is listed for a conciliation hearing on May 23 in Sydney.
Bruce Lehrmann, pictured on April 1 in the Sydney suburb of Balgowlah.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Meakes was the partner of champion sailor Mark Richards, a longtime skipper of Wild Oats XI. The precise nature of her action is not yet clear.
Lehrmann, who lost a multimillion-dollar defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson last month, had his rent at the luxury property covered by Seven.
During the defamation case, the Federal Court heard Seven spent about $100,000 paying Lehrmann’s rent for a year to April 2024 under an exclusive interview deal.
Lady Gaenor Meakes.
Lehrmann has until May 31 to file any notice of appeal against Justice Michael Lee’s decision to dismiss his defamation suit over an interview with Lehrmann’s former colleague Brittany Higgins, broadcast on Ten’s The Project in 2021 and helmed by Wilkinson.
He had claimed the interview defamed him by suggesting he was guilty of sexual assault.
Lee found Ten and Wilkinson had proven to the civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that Lehrmann raped Higgins in Parliament House in March 2019 when they were working as staffers to Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, who was then the defence industry minister.
Lehrmann raised the ire of neighbours in North Sydney after he decamped from the Balgowlah property to a friend’s home for a short stint in April.
“We’ve been experiencing horrific parties,” one neighbour told this masthead at the time. They singled out the “screeching karaoke” for particular disapprobation.
Lawyers for Lehrmann, Wilkinson and Ten will return to court on Wednesday for a hearing related to the legal costs of the failed defamation suit. Lee will deliver his decision on costs on Friday.
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