Lisa Wilkinson only had a ‘limited role’ in Brittany Higgins broadcast: court documents
Lisa Wilkinson’s role in producing Brittany Higgins’ interview with The Project was simply to ‘read the pre-prepared script’, court documents show.
Lisa Wilkinson’s “limited role” in producing the final broadcast of Brittany Higgins’ interview with The Project was simply to “read the pre-prepared script”, new Federal Court documents from the veteran television presenter’s lawyers show.
The documents, uploaded late on Friday afternoon as part of Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Wilkinson and Network Ten, also say it was “unsurprising” Wilkinson “had difficulty” giving evidence in the witness box because of her long-standing experience “in a professional environment which involves conversational style interviews and debates”.
Ms Higgins’s interview with Wilkinson, in which she detailed rape allegations against Mr Lehrmann but did not name him as the alleged attacker, is at the centre of a mammoth defamation case, which stretched over a five-week trial at the end of last year.
Mr Lehrmann denies raping Ms Higgins, and says no sexual activity ever took place.
Wilkinson’s silk, Sue Chrysanthou SC, in final submissions tendered to the court, argued that she was simply a member of a “large and experienced team subject to the control and directions of the executives within Network Ten and the production”
“That Ms Wilkinson was an experienced journalist across a range of different mediums over many years does not change or affect her responsibility and role in the preparation, production and publication of the broadcast,” the submissions read.
The submissions described Wilkinson as an “experienced presenter” and said any assertion that she was a senior journalist investigating Ms Higgins allegations was incorrect.
“Network Ten executive producer Ms (Sarah) Thornton did not identify in her unchallenged evidence Ms Wilkinson as one of the ‘senior journalists’ working behind the scenes to make sure the facts were right,” the submissions read.
Ms Chrysanthou argued that it was unsurprising that Wilkinson did not check the metadata on a photo of a bruise on Ms Higgins’s leg, which was shown during The Project interview.
Ms Higgins originally said during The Project that the bruise was a result of the alleged rape, but during the defamation trial said it could have occurred when she fell up the stairs at the 88mph bar earlier that evening.
Mr Lehrmann has maintained that Ms Higgins may have taken the bruise photo as late as January 2021, almost two years after the alleged rape occurred, due to the fact the image did not have any metadata proving otherwise.
Ms Chrysanthou said it was not shocking that Wilkinson did not “have regard” to the metadata of an image.
“It is unsurprising that a person who was a cadet journalist in 1978 would not have regard to photographic metadata,” she wrote in the submissions.
“There is no evidence for the contention that most journalists are aware or should be aware of photographic metadata or have regard to such data (or that such data cannot be manipulated or is stable).”
Ms Chrysanthou argued that Wilkinson was not “a decision-maker in relation to any aspect of the final production, broadcast and publication” of The Project program, but was rather given a script to accompany the interview, and read it out.
“Her role in relation to the final broadcast was to read the pre-prepared script; she acted not only reasonably in reading that pre-prepared script but perfectly, in that she read it word for word,” the submissions read.
Ten also filed closing submissions to wrap up their case, asserting that Mr Lehrmann “repeatedly gave untruthful evidence on matters of central importance in this proceeding”.
Ten’s lawyers also rejected Mr Lehrmann’s assertion that it was the “gamble of his life” to say he and Ms Higgins had never had sex – considering he was unaware of whether she had sought forensic testing from that night – and rather, if he was lying, it would have been simpler to say they engaged in consensual intercourse.
“If Mr Lehrmann had admitted sexual activity had occurred, but asserted it was consensual, it was all but inevitable that he would be charged, having regard to Ms Higgins’s account and the amount of alcohol that had been consumed, irrespective of whether there was any forensic evidence in existence,” the submissions read.
Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers submitted that while some parts of his evidence were “unsatisfactory”, Ten’s characterisation of him as a “compulsive liar” was an overstatement.
“In our submission, Mr Lehrmann’s evidence that he neither raped nor engaged in any sexual activity with Ms Higgins should be accepted,” the submission reads.
The parties are now awaiting a judgment from Federal Court justice Michael Lee. It could be delivered at any time.
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