Wilkinson wins the day – but messy legal battle still has a long way to run

Exactly three years ago on Thursday, Channel Ten aired an explosive interview by its star broadcaster with a young former Liberal staffer who alleged she was raped by a colleague in the Parliament House office of her boss, a minister of the Crown.

When Lisa Wilkinson finished the interview, two days before it was broadcast on February 15, 2021, she texted a triumphant “mission complete!” to her boss, veteran news chief Peter Meakin.

Lisa Wilkinson leaves court on Wednesday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Back then, there was no hint of the woe that would follow – a political scandal that would contribute to the downfall of a government, a criminal trial aborted, strong protestations of innocence by the young man accused, rancour between police and prosecutors over the worthiness of that trial, a defamation suit, Wilkinson’s own cross-claim in that defamation suit, an inquiry into the criminal trial, then a court bid to overturn the findings of that inquiry, amid allegations of inappropriate professional contact between the inquiry head (a former judge) and a journalist.

Three years ago, Wilkinson could never have foreseen how bitterly relations with her employer, Channel Ten, would break down in the intervening years.

On Wednesday, she won a significant victory against the network (she is still officially on the books, although no longer appears on television) when Channel Ten conceded it was reasonable for her to hire her own lawyers to defend her interests in the defamation trial brought against Ten and Wilkinson by the accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann. The judge also decided it was reasonable.

Lehrmann was not named as the alleged rapist in Wilkinson’s 2021 interview, but he argued he was identifiable anyway.

Michael Elliott, SC, for Wilkinson, said Ten had led her on a “merry dance”, only to capitulate at the last minute, and while such late-stage changes of heart are common in litigation, it was hard to disagree.

Throughout evidence adduced in court, it seemed Wilkinson had been thrown under a bus by her employer.

After doing the interview and then accepting a Logie for it on behalf of the network, Wilkinson gave a speech at the television awards ceremony praising Higgins for her “unwavering courage”.

The judge in charge of Lehrmann’s pending criminal trial was furious. She publicly lambasted Wilkinson and postponed the trial in an effort to give Lehrmann procedural fairness.

But Wilkinson told the court that she had been asked to give the Logies speech by Ten, and evidence showed that Channel Ten’s own lawyers had checked it and pronounced it fine.

The network’s CEO, Beverley McGarvey, even texted her after she gave it, saying “beautiful speech”.

“All of them had approved the speech, but I was the one accused … I, alone, of derailing the rape case,” Wilkinson said in court this week.

Channel Ten made a public statement at the time saying it “fully supported” Wilkinson, but the court heard that behind the scenes it refused to say publicly that the network’s corporate counsel had legalled the speech and ticked it off.

The media, as Wilkinson said, “trashed” her.

Ten’s change of heart on Wednesday will go some way to amending the wrong, although it hasn’t yet been decided how much of Wilkinson’s legal costs – thought to be around the $2 million mark – Ten will be liable for.

But the reputational damage Wilkinson has suffered is harder to expunge, and five months after the Logies controversy, she was removed from her position as co-host of The Project, something she said was devastating.

She has not worked since.

This latest stoush between Wilkinson and Channel Ten was another instance of the high emotion and conflicted interests that infuse the Lehrmann/Higgins matter.

And it’s not over yet.

Running concurrently with this matter is the case former ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold is bringing to overturn the findings of an inquiry into the Lehrmann trial which was critical of his conduct.

Drumgold was also the subject of a lot of negative media coverage, and quit his job.

And Senator Linda Reynolds, in whose office the alleged rape allegedly occurred, is suing Higgins and her partner David Sharaz for defamation.

Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court is expected to hand down a judgment on Lehrmann’s substantive defamation matter as early as March.

That decision will either serve as some vindication of Lehrmann as an accused rapist, or vindication of the journalism of Wilkinson and Channel Ten.

If it’s the latter, you can bet they won’t be celebrating together.

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