Bruce Lehrmann is an “inspiration”. Of course he is. At least his solicitor-advocate, Zali Burrows, is urging us to see him that way because he inspires those who have been “wrongly accused”.
That may confuse those who were thinking, up this point, that it was Bruce who was doing the accusing – accusing the people at Channel 10 and its former star presenter Lisa Wilkinson of getting it so wrong.
Then accusing the trial judge, Michael Lee, of getting it utterly wrong, requiring Bruce to courageously try to retrieve, again, what’s left of his well-munched hat.
In some special corners of the land and beyond, there could be people drawing inspiration from Bruce Lehrmann – people who are in Long Bay bravely maintaining their innocence or litigants whose cases have crashed and burned and can’t pay the costs.
Victims, all – just as Bruce is a victim. Even though he is a victim of his own folly that shouldn’t mean that he’s not an inspiration, in the same way as those who overcome terrible adversities or make marvellous life-enhancing scientific and artistic contributions.
Bruce Lehrmann’s mission has been to expand the boundaries of inspiration-hood. He’s holding a torch for all of us.
Certainly, Burrows’ pronouncement makes a nice change from her description last August when she said of her client, “He’s pretty much become the national joke ... Australia’s most hated man.”
That is not to say that inspiring or even hated people aren’t capable of making stupid mistakes. One of Bruce’s mistakes was to embark on litigation in the first place. My hunch is that he thought Brittany Higgins would not get into the witness box because of her fragile mental state.
She had been in and out of hospital after collapsing and her condition deteriorated after Linda Reynolds’ litigation cranked into gear.
Lehrmann’s legal team was confident they would have a clear run to success without the respondents being able to prove a truth defence.
However, once Higgins saw Lehrmann’s disastrous evidence, she put up her hand. Justice Lee later said, “To remark that Mr Lehrmann was a poor witness is an exercise in understatement.”
While Lee disbelieved aspects of Higgins’ evidence he accepted the crucial elements, which allowed him to find that on the balance of probabilities Lehrmann had raped her on Senator Linda Reynolds’ ministerial couch.
On that basis the justification (truth) defence succeeded. Thank you Brittany.
In 2023, Bruce was feeling as though a rainbow had struck his posterior. He’d scooped up close to $500,000 in settlements with the ABC and News Corp – the price they paid for not wanting to get into the Colosseum.
Large chunks of that would have kept his lawyers ready and willing.
Actually, Bruce has little to no financial exposure to these courtroom misadventures. The Channel 10 people are out of pocket, and so too the lawyers who staked him at trial.
Even though the appellant doesn’t have a brass razoo, in October last year Justice Wendy Abraham in the federal court said the poor lamb doesn’t have to provide security for costs before launching his appeal against Justice Lee’s findings.
It’s a free home run, forget the $2m already on the meter and payable to Ten. Now another half-million for the appeal can be added to that unrecoverable pile of financial compost.
It’s been remarked by people who closely observe the courts that the defamation game is running out of puff. After Ben Roberts-Smith, Bruce Lehrmann and Munjed Al Muderis, why would anyone think the courts are the best place to varnish their reputation?
Even those who “win” are out of pocket. Linda Reynolds’ damages of $341,000, with costs most likely to be in excess of $1.5m, are unlikely to be satisfied by Higgins.
Joe Hockey in his “Treasurer for Sale” case against the Sydney Morning Herald ended up underwater. He asked for $1m and was awarded $200,000 and only received 15% of his costs.
Actor Geoffrey Rush was given a restorative $2.8m by Justice Michael Wigney in his action against the Daily Telegraph, yet that did little to enhance his glittering career.
Little wonder those who the SMH and the Age recently described as “grasping defamation lawyers” have turned their attention to the new fertile uplands of serious invasions of privacy.
Some of Bruce’s ardent supporters have gone quiet, including the Presumption of Innocence Squad under the baton of Bettina Arndt.
His old pals at News Corp, who insisted he should never have been prosecuted for rape, have moved on to lavishly advocate for another determined litigant, the guardian of the office couch, former senator Linda Reynolds.
Yet Bruce has not completely run out of possibilities for providing further inspiration.
A while ago he was hoping the ACT government would buy him a house, however the threatened litigation over his prosecution for rape seems to have disappeared.
More recently, he wants court orders to get the commonwealth to pay for his defence in a Corruption Commission investigation into his use or misuse of government documents.
And now there’s the possibility of a special leave application to the high court.
Never say die for Australia’s most hated, inspirational man.
Richard Ackland publishes Justinian and Spilled Ink
