Ten’s inquisitor Matt Collins operates with surgical precision on Bruce Lehrmann’s credibility

Network Ten counsel Matt Collins KC, left, arrives with other lawyers for the first day of the defamation trial at the Federal Court in Sydney. Picture: John Feder

Bruce Lehrmann was having a bad day on Friday, as his credibility was peeled away with surgical precision by Network Ten’s relentless inquisitor, Matt Collins KC.

On the third day of his defamation case against the TV network and presenter Lisa Wilkinson, the former Liberal staffer again had to admit giving false evidence – this time over his previous denials that he had bought Brittany Higgins drinks on the night he allegedly raped her.

“I’ve refreshed my memory,’’ he said, after asking for a break in proceedings. “I do recall having some time with Ms ­Higgins up at the bar where I did buy a drink.”

It may have been a small comfort for Lehrmann knowing that next week Higgins would be sitting in the same seat, getting similar treatment.

It was often predicted that this defamation case would be a re-run of the criminal trial aborted by juror misconduct last year. In fact, it’s become much more, as both sides are now discovering.

Bruce Lehrmann leaves the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Lehrmann never had to face cross-examination in his criminal trial; now he’s been forced to agree that some of the evidence he gave police was false, and moreover, that he failed to stop it going to the jury.

Higgins was required to give evidence at the rape trial last year but was spared many of the questions that Lehrmann’s defence counsel, Steven Whybrow SC, sought to put to her, due to the frequent intervention of Chief Justice Lucy McCallum.

Chief Justice McCallum is not presiding over this trial and the rules protecting sexual assault complainants in criminal cases do not apply in civil proceedings.

Whybrow, who is again representing Lehrmann, is also no longer hamstrung by the concerted efforts of ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold to deny him access to police reports about inconsistencies in Higgins’s accounts of events.

He will doubtless seek to raise many of those inconsistencies with Higgins when she takes the stand next week.

So Lehrmann will grit his teeth and endure at least another day of interrogation by Collins.

If Friday’s proceedings are any guide, it will be uncomfortable.

Lehrmann vehemently denied a series of detailed questions about whether he raped Higgins on a couch in the office of then federal minister Linda Reynolds.

Collins zeroed in on Lehrmann’s claim this week that when he went to the Dock Hotel in Canberra, earlier in the evening of the alleged rape, he bought drinks only for his colleague Austin Wenke and himself.

“You remember going to the bar with Ms Higgins, don’t you, and ordering, on two separate occasions, a drink for her and a drink for you?” Collins asked.

Lehrmann said he had “become aware” of having bought alcohol for Higgins only after having reviewed CCTV footage from the hotel, although he had difficulty remembering when he had reviewed it. “I was wrong,” he said. “I’m sorry, I must have been confused about where we were.”

Collins spent much of the morning taking Lehrmann frame by frame through the CCTV from the hotel. He reminded Lehrmann that he had previously given evidence that he spent only $16 at the bar, using a credit card.

That did not seem enough to cover the two beers and an alcoholic drink Lehrmann was seen buying in the up-market pub, Collins suggested.

“You have another card, Mr Lehrmann?”

“No.”

“You can’t explain this to His Honour?”

“No.”

He repeatedly denied he was trying to get Higgins drunk.

Collins has foreshadowed that the defence hired a British lip-reader to provide evidence about what was allegedly said in the bar, although judge Michael Lee is yet to rule on the extent to which that will be allowed.

Collins took Lehrmann through various occasions in the evening where, he suggested, Lehrmann was encouraging Higgins to drink, including the point where they left the pub to “kick on” to a club, 88mph.

Higgins had just swallowed her sixth drink of the night.

“You said to her ‘Drink that all now’, Collins suggested.

“I would just completely disagree with that.”

“She responded, ‘I don’t want to’?” Collins asked.

“I don’t recall that ever taking place, no.”

If the lip-reading expert is allowed to act as interpreter of those exchanges, it will add one more bizarre layer to what is already the strangest of cases.

Team Lehrmann ended the day with one small win.

Justice Lee isn’t happy about the arrangement under which Lehrmann will be cross-examined by Wilkinson’s counsel, Sue Chrysanthou SC, after the TV presenter ditched Ten’s legal team. “For a witness to be vexed by multiple cross-examination, there needs to be some reason,” he said as the court adjourned for the week, clearly unimpressed.

Chrysanthou told him it had been discussed with Lehrmann’s counsel and “there’s no ­secret in how we intend to divide issues”.

“It may not be a secret between counsel, but it’s a secret to me,” he responded.