Bruce Lehrmann ‘raped Brittany Higgins’, Ten wins defamation case

Bruce Lehrmann had been attracted to Brittany Higgins for a while and, for the first time, kissed the object of his attraction passionately.

Bruce Lehrmann and Lisa Wilkinson outside the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday after judge Michael Lee ruled against the Liberal staffer’s defamation case. Picture: John Appleyard/Gaye Gerard/NCA NewsWire

Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House, ­Justice Michael Lee has found, in a dramatic end to the former ­Liberal staffer’s defamation case against the Ten Network and Lisa Wilkinson.

In delivering his long-awaited judgment, Justice Lee found Mr Lehrmann was “hellbent” on having sex with Ms Higgins after passionately kissing her in a Canberra nightclub, and was “so intent upon gratification” that he “did not care one way or the other whether Ms Higgins understood or agreed to what was going on”.

But the judge also made serious adverse findings about the conduct of Ten and Wilkinson in the preparation and aftermath of the story, declaring that The Project’s former star presenter had demonstrated “a lack of candour” in the witness box.

Justice Lee was highly critical of the program’s suggestion that the rape had been the subject of cover-up, hushed up to avoid a political scandal in the lead-up to a federal election.

He found that Wilkinson and her team were prepared to assist in the plans of Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz “to use the allegations for immediate political advantage”.

The accusations of conspiracy had caused a “brume of confusion” and did much “collateral damage, including to the fair and orderly progress of the underlying allegation of sexual assault through the criminal justice system”.

Justice Lee found that Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins were both “unreliable historians”, and that Ms Higgins lied when she put forward a number of allegations about her bosses while negotiating a $2.4m settlement with the commonwealth, Justice Lee found.

The Albanese government paid Ms Higgins the settlement relying entirely on her version of events, after a single-day ­mediation that excluded evidence from her former boss, then ­defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.

Outside court on Monday, Wilkinson said she hoped the judgment “gives strength to women around the country” but did not take any questions.

Though still employed by Ten, Wilkinson is unlikely to return to air on the network in the aftermath of her cross claim against the network to cover her separate legal representation.

The cross claim revealed that Ten’s in-house lawyer, Tasha Smithies, had approved Wilkinson’s Logies speech, but the network had refused to make that advice public.

Justice Lee rebuked Ms Smithies for failing to recognise the ­impact of the advice to Wilkinson that caused Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial for the alleged rape of Ms Higgins to be stayed.

Lisa Wilkinson, with barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, leave court on Monday.

“There has been ample time for material reflection and yet there is no recognition even now, that the speech could have undermined the administration of justice and caused it to be disrupted,” Justice Lee said.

Mr Lehrmann last year sued Ten and Wilkinson over her interview with Ms Higgins on The Project in 2021, detailing accu­sations that Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins but not naming him as the alleged attacker.

Mr Lehrmann had always maintained his innocence, and claimed no sexual assault occurred between the pair.

On Monday, after a trial estimated to have cost $10m, Justice Lee found Mr Lehrmann to be a liar, and said, on the balance of probabilities, sexual intercourse took place on the couch in the office of Senator Reynolds in March 2019. However, the decision does not amount to a finding of criminal guilt.

Mr Lehrmann left court without making any comment, despite being peppered with questions.

While the legal costs are almost certain to be awarded against Mr Lehrmann, he is currently an unemployed law student and unlikely ever to be able to pay.

That means Ten will almost certainly have to bear its own costs and those incurred by Wilkinson, having already been found liable to pay for her legal team, led by Sue Chrysanthou SC.

Justice Lee drew particular attention to the role of Mr Sharaz in developing the allegations of rape to claims of a political cover-up by the Liberal Party to avoid a scandal in the upcoming federal election.

That cover-up or “victimisation” allegation was perceived by The Project team as being the most important aspect of its program and its deployment meant Ms Higgins’ account achieved much notoriety and public interest, Justice Lee observed. “The articulation of the core aspects of this claim commenced shortly before Ms Higgins’ boyfriend, Mr Sharaz, made the necessary arrangements for Ms Higgins to tell her account,” he said.

Mr Sharaz clearly had a political motivation, Justice Lee said, pointing to his conversations in a five-hour meeting between Wilkinson, her producer Angus Llewellyn and Ms Higgins.

Mr Sharaz announced that he and Ms Higgins had chosen the timeline for the story to break because it was a parliamentary sitting week, and that his friend, Labor senator Katy Gallagher, would “probe and continue it going”.

“In the light of what had been communicated by Mr Sharaz before and during this first interview, any journalist who did not think Mr Sharaz had a motivation to inflict immediate political damage would have to be wilfully blind.” Justice Lee said.

However, any finding on the qualified privilege (or public interest) defence proffered by Ten and Wilkinson became redundant when Justice Lee made his finding that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins.

Justice Lee said the sex occurred with Mr Lehrmann on top of Ms Higgins on the couch, and concluded shortly after Mr Lehrmann ejaculated. While Justice Lee did not accept Ms Higgins’ evidence that she “said ‘no’ on a loop” when she woke up to Mr Lehrmann on top of her, he found she did not consent to the sex taking place.

“I’m satisfied that it is more likely than not that Mr Lehrmann’s state of mind was such that he was so intent upon gratification to be indifferent to Ms Higgins consenting,” Justice Lee said. “(Mr Lehrmann was) hellbent on having sex with a woman he found sexually attractive, had been mutually passionately kissing and touching … and knew had reduced inhibition.

“He did not care one way or the other whether Ms Higgins understood or consented to what was going on.”

He later said: “Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins. I hasten to stress this is a finding on the balance of probabilities.”

Justice Lee relied heavily on the evidence of former Liberal staffer Lauren Gain who testified at trial that she saw Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins “pashing” one another while at the 88mph nightclub on the night the rape occurred.

“He’d been attracted to Ms Higgins for a while and, for the first time, kissed the object of his attraction passionately, placed his hand intimately on her leg and thigh and had his physical displays of action requited,” the judge said.

“Mr Lehrmann was acting upon his attraction to Ms Higgins, and the less-than-sober Ms Higgins was sufficiently uninhibited to be a not-unwilling ­participant.”

Justice Lee found Ms Higgins gave a “false characterisation” about why she went back to Parliament House that night, having also kissed Mr Lehrmann.

Sign up to The Australian’s legal affairs newsletter, Ipso Facto, here. It’s free.