Brittany Higgins, Bruce Lehrmann parliament CCTV footage handed to court
A top silk questioned why critical footage of Bruce Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins in parliament house on the night of her alleged rape wasn’t produced earlier.
Critical CCTV footage of Bruce Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins in parliament house on the night of her alleged rape has been handed over to court, after a top silk in the defamation proceedings demanded to know why it wasn’t produced earlier.
Seven Network delivered the footage to the federal court on Monday as part of the high-profile defamation action between Mr Lehrmann, Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson, and a separate matter concerning Mr Lehrmann and the ABC.
Snippets of the CCTV video, showing Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins passing through parliament house security on the night of the alleged rape in 2019, were aired in the Seven Network’s Spotlight program last month.
The raw tapes were subpoenaed from the Seven Network as the Department of Parliamentary Services failed to provide any footage of Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins in parliament house.
Defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, acting for Lisa Wilkinson, earlier this month told the court that the fact the Department of Parliamentary Services said it had no CCTV footage to produce from the night of the alleged rape was concerning.
“We think there should be some explanation as to why that material hasn’t been produced,” she said at the time.
However, Network Ten barrister Tim Senior on Monday told the court he was satisfied the Department of Parliamentary Services had made every effort to comply with the subpoena, but were unable to produce the footage as it hadn’t been “quarantined”.
“Searches have been carried out to see whether that material was one of the server somewhere but apparently it‘s not,” he said.
Mr Lehrmann, who has consistently denied the rape allegations, is suing Network 10 and Ms Wilkinson over an interview with Ms Higgins that aired on The Project in February 2021 detailing allegations Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins in parliament house, but not naming Mr Lehrmann as the alleged attacker.
While the raw CCTV footage had been produced by the Seven Network, Mr Senior foreshadowed issues regarding whether or not the network had fully complied with the subpoena.
“There is another issue in relation to a subpoena that had been issued to Seven Network Operations,” Mr Senior told the court on Monday.
“Your Honour might recall on the last occasion, there was some additional production in response to that subpoena.
“The subpoena called on raw footage relating to the Spotlight broadcast, so there have been two tranches of material produced.
“We are still reviewing the second tranche from the last occasion, so I wanted to raise it with Your Honour, just to flag that it may not be spent, but we are in the process of reviewing it to see whether we’re satisfied that that material that’s been has been complied with.”
Mr Lehrmann is also suing the ABC over the broadcast of a National Press Club address given by Ms Higgins.
ABC journalist Laura Tingle and publisher Random House on Monday produced documents in relation to the defamation action.
Earlier this month the court heard Nine columnist Peter FitzSimons had been subpoenaed to produce documents relating to a book deal he helped secure for former ministerial staffer Brittany Higgins believed to be worth $325,000.
The matter will return for case management on August 28.
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