Bruce Lehrmann defamation case LIVE updates: Justice Michael ...

15 Apr 2024
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11.30am

Judge examines Higgins’ bruise photograph

One of the pieces of evidence examined in the defamation case was a photo of a bruise on Brittany Higgins’ leg that she had said was taken shortly after the alleged sexual assault of her by Bruce Lehrmann in 2019.

Bruce Lehrmann - Figure 1
Photo The Age

Justice Michael Lee said that Higgins had “distanced herself from embracing it as evidence of the rape” in her evidence in court, and inconsistencies relating to the photograph were both “important and vexing”.

He also pointed to missing data on Higgins’ phone, including photos taken on the “fateful night” in question.

11.23am

Brittany Higgins an ‘unsatisfactory witness’ in several respectsBy Michaela Whitbourn and Sarah McPhee

Turning to the credibility of Brittany Higgins, Justice Michael Lee said Lehrmann’s barrister made “several detailed attacks” on her evidence in the defamation case.

Lee said that there were “inconsistencies and untruths” in some of Higgins’ claims in 2019, “but they must be contextualised”. He said that there was a “lack of nuance” and superficiality in dismissing a witness as entirely unreliable because of problems with their evidence, he said.

Brittany Higgins outside the Perth Supreme Court in March.Credit: Trevor Collens

He said that inconsistencies in Higgins’ claims in the years after 2019 were “far more troubling”, including Higgins effectively accusing those involved in the political process of “putting up roadblocks” to her making a formal sexual harassment complaint.

Higgins has alleged Lehrmann sexually assaulted her in March 2019 in Parliament House. She first engaged with the media about that claim in February 2021.

Lee said it would be fair to describe Higgins “as a complex and, in several respects, unsatisfactory witness”.

Bruce Lehrmann - Figure 2
Photo The Age

“Nuance is required in evaluating her evidence, and any contentious and uncorroborated aspect needs to be scrutinised warily.”

11.14am

Lehrmann ‘less than candid’ about dealings with Seven

The judge said Lehrmann was also “less than candid” in his evidence in court about the benefits he received from the Seven Network before he signed an exclusive interview deal with its Spotlight program last year.

He said Lehrmann had also made “false representations” about documents he provided to Seven.

11.09am

Evidence about Higgins, Lehrmann kissing ‘compelling’

Justice Michael Lee said “hyperbolic submissions” about the credibility of witnesses in court cases are not uncommon, but this was one of those cases where expressing criticism is warranted.

“I do not think that Mr Lehrmann is a compulsive liar,” he said, but “I am satisfied in important respects he told deliberate lies”.

Bruce Lehrmann outside the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Lee said he would “not accept anything [Lehrmann] said”, except where it amounted to an admission, accorded with the inherent probabilities, or was corroborated by a witness whose evidence he accepted.

He said an example of Lehrmann’s “false out-of-court statements or unsatisfactory evidence are legion”. This included his initial denial that he found Brittany Higgins attractive, he said.

He said Lehrmann also gave false evidence when he denied any intimacy with Higgins at a Canberra nightclub, 88mph, in the hours before Higgins alleges he raped her in Parliament House.

Bruce Lehrmann - Figure 3
Photo The Age

Lee said the evidence of a former staffer, Lauren Gain, that Higgins and Lehrmann shared a passionate kiss at that venue was “compelling”.

11.01am

Judge says Lehrmann was identified by Ten

Justice Lee said he was satisfied Lehrmann had established a threshold issue in the case: namely, that he was identified by Ten’s The Project even though he was not named by Brittany Higgins in her interview with the broadcaster.

It means he must consider Ten and Lisa Wilkinson’s defences of truth and qualified privilege.

He said that contemporaneous records in the case, including CCTV footage, are a “far surer guide” to what happened on the night in question in March 2019 than other evidence.

10.58am

Lehrmann’s attachment to the truth ‘tenuous’, judge says

Justice Michael Lee says that the Lehrmann litigation is “a credit case”, meaning that it involves an assessment involving two people who are in different ways unreliable historians.

To describe Bruce Lehrmann as a poor witness would be “an exercise in understatement”, Lee said, and his “attachment to the truth” could be described as a tenuous one.

Bruce Lehrmann arrives at the Law Courts building in Sydney for the judgement in his defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in Sydney.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

However, he said that there are also problems with the reliability of Brittany Higgins’ evidence.

He says that Higgins’ engagement with the media in February 2021 emphasised an alleged political cover up of her sexual assault allegation.

Bruce Lehrmann - Figure 4
Photo The Age

Here is what Lee said in full:

This is a case where credit findings are central and sometimes an explanation other than mendacity is not rationally available. To remark that Mr Lehrmann is a poor witness is an exercise in understatement. His attachment to the truth was a tenuous one, by fashioning his responses in what he perceived to be his forensic interests.

Ms Brittany Higgins was also an unsatisfactory witness, who made some allegations who made her a heroine to one group of people.

10.56am

Judge resumes delivering decision

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee quips: “I think I got up to the point where I said omnishambles.”

He jokes that perhaps the court should recall the UK-based expert lipreader in the proceedings, who gave evidence for Ten, to decipher what he said when the YouTube stream was muted.

Lee said that his judgment is not written for people who had made up their mind before any evidence was heard in the case.

10.53am

Technical issue resolved

A technical issue affecting audio from the Federal Court’s YouTube stream has been resolved. Federal Court Justice Michael Lee will return to court shortly.

10.28am

Lehrmann and Higgins ‘unreliable historians’: judge

The Herald’s Jacqueline Maley is in courtroom one in the Federal Court in Sydney and has heard parts of Justice Michael Lee’s decision that were not broadcast owing to a technical issue.

“For more than a few this has become a proxy for broader cultural and political conflicts,” Lee said of the defamation litigation.

Bruce Lehrmann and his legal team outside the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“An astute observer would have gleaned from the trial this case is not as straightforward as some might suggest.”

The judge said that “only one man and one woman know the truth with certitude,” but they are “two people who are both in different ways unreliable historians”.

“People give unreliable evidence for various reasons and distinguishing between a false memory and a lie can be difficult,” Lee said.

10.23am

‘A singular case’: Justice Lee’s opening remarks

Just before Justice Michael Lee adjourned for the court to address a technical issue, he had described the Lehrmann litigation as follows:

It is a singular case. The underlying controversy has become a cause célèbre. Given its unexpected detours and collateral damage, it may be fitting to describe it as an omnishambles.

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