Bruce Lehrmann a ‘dishonourable cad’ who raped Brittany Higgins, says Justice Michael Lee

Justice Michael Lee has savaged the former Liberal staffer for deliberately telling lies to prevent his misdeeds coming to light, labelling him a dishonourable ‘cad’ who pursued his own sexual gratification.

Bruce Lehrmann at the Federal Court on Monday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Adam Yip

Justice Michael Lee has savaged Bruce Lehrmann as a dishonourable “cad” who raped Brittany Higgins and deliberately told lies to prevent his misdeeds coming to light, ultimately finding the former staffer’s evidence should not be trusted unless he is backed up by a reliable witness or admitting to wrongdoing.

The former Liberal staffer on Monday lost his landmark defamation case against Network 10 and presenter Lisa Wilkinson, after Justice Lee found he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House despite, for three years, claiming the pair never had sex.

In delivering his judgment, Justice Lee said Mr Lehrmann “told deliberate lies” to advance his version of events, including:

• Claiming he never had sex with Ms Higgins
• Denying that he found Ms Higgins “alluring” as of March, 2019
• Claiming he had not met Ms Higgins prior to March 2, 2019
• Said he did not purchase drinks for anyone other than himself and Austin Wenke
• Denying any intimacy occurred between him and Ms Higgins at the 88mph nightclub
• Claiming he wasn’t reprimanded by Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds
• Accusing former Liberal staffer Lauren Gain of “colluding” with Ms Higgins to invent an account of what happened
• Said his interactions with Ms Higgins from the night of rape were “minimal”
• Interviewing for a job at the Australian Secret Intelligence Service

Justice Lee found Mr Lehrmann “did not care” whether Ms Higgins consented to having sex with him or not, and was instead “hellbent on having sex with a woman he found sexually attractive.”

“In his pursuit of gratification, he did not care one way or another whether Ms Higgins understood or agreed to what was going on,” he said.

Justice Lee said, despite Mr Lehrmann’s denials, the former Liberal staffer found Ms Higgins “attractive” from the moment he met her, and “this attraction informed a number of his later actions.”

“When confronted by this inconsistency, his attempt to explain it away by suggesting the attraction he felt for Ms Higgins was ‘just like (the attraction) I can find (in) anybody else in this (court) room, irrespective of gender” was as disconcerting as it was unconvincing,” he wrote in his judgment.

While giving evidence during trial, Mr Lehrmann claimed at The Dock hotel on the night he raped Ms Higgins, he only bought one drink for himself, one for Mr Wenke and claimed he had “minimal contact” with Ms Higgins.

Justice Lee said this was an example of Mr Lehrmann’s “unreliable” evidence, considering the statements were wholly disproven by CCTV footage.

“This was an aspect of Mr Lehrmann’s evidence where I am unsure whether he was being recklessly indifferent to the truth; or was finding it difficult to remember what was true; or was confused (or a combination of these things),” he said.

Justice Lee dismissed Mr Lehrmann’s claims that he was not intimate with Ms Higgins because he had a girlfriend, instead believing “compelling” evidence from Liberal staffer Lauren Gain that he was “taking selfies” with and kissing Ms Higgins on the night of the rape.

“Ms Gain’s account that she observed Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins ‘being quite touchy with one another’ and her memory of both engaging in a ‘passionate kiss’ and of Ms Higgins ‘taking selfies of the two of them’ was compelling,” Justice Lee said.

“It also reveals the hollowness of Mr Lehrmann’s suggestion that his relationship with a girlfriend morally inhibited him from engaging in intimacy with Ms Higgins. This was an example of Mr Lehrmann being mendacious about a centrally important part of the case.”

Mr Lehrmann behaved “dishonourably” by having sex with Ms Higgins while in a relationship, Justice Lee said, when considering – and then rejecting – the possibility the intercourse was consensual.

“On the assumption the sex was consensual, Mr Lehrmann was still behaving dishonourably by having sexual intercourse with Ms Higgins while in a relationship, and his girlfriend was trying to contact him – presumably trying to work out where he was and why he was there at 2.15am,” he said.

“Given he had satisfied himself, and that he knew his girlfriend was awake and was attempting to contact him, calling an Uber and getting out of the Ministerial private office with celerity (and leaving Ms Higgins undressed) is the action of a cad, but is nonetheless explicable.”

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