Bruce Lehrmann claims that he was denied procedural fairness by the judge who rejected his defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
Lehrmann’s notice of appeal against the April judgment, which found that on the balance of probabilities he raped Brittany Higgins on a minister’s couch in Parliament House in 2019, was lodged at the federal court on Friday.
The four-page document, filed in the court and obtained by Guardian Australia, mentions no law firm – it was prepared by Bruce Emery Lehrmann, and names his Queensland residence as the address for service of legal documents.
Justice Michael Lee found the former Liberal staffer was not defamed by Wilkinson and Ten when The Project broadcast an interview with Higgins on Monday 15 February 2021 in which she alleged she was raped by a staffer.
Lehrmann listed four grounds for appeal:
Denial of procedural fairness by the trial judge.
The justification finding was contrary to the evidence and the application of the standard of proof required by trial judge.
Construction/misconstruction of the imputations by the trial judge.
Inadequate award of damages where aggravation was made out by the applicant.
Lehrmann claimed that Lee’s finding that aggravation was made out – in that Wilkinson’s Logies speech had an impact on the administration of justice – meant that if he had won, the award of damages would have been “wholly inadequate”.
In his judgment, Lee said “if it had been necessary to assess damages in favour of Mr Lehrmann, the appropriate and rational relationship between the actual harm sustained and the damages awarded would lead to total damages of $20,000”.
Lehrmann also claimed that Lee had not properly construed the imputation in The Project’s broadcast of a violent rape of Higgins “where the complainant was in tears and repeatedly refused consent, of which repeated refusal the perpetrator must have been aware”.
“This is contrary to the non-violent rape involving inadvertent recklessness as to consent which was ultimately found in the judgement made by the trial judge,” Lehrmann said in the appeal document.
Lehrmann said Ten’s “cornerstone evidence” of a photograph of a bruise on Higgins’ leg was dismissed as untrue by Lee, as was other secondary evidence, therefore it was not open to the judge to find as he did, that he had raped Higgins.
Lehrmann has asked the federal court to set aside the judgment and for the respondents to pay his costs in this and in the original proceeding.
Lehrmann has been ordered to pay most of Ten’s legal costs from the failed defamation suit on an indemnity basis because he had brought the case on a “knowingly false premise”.
Legal experts have estimated the bill for Network Ten and Wilkinson’s legal counsel alone would be $8m.
As Lehrmann is unemployed and without significant means to pay Ten’s costs the network could still be saddled with the bill.
Wilkinson is seeking more than $1.8m in indemnity costs from Ten after the former Project presenter hired her own legal counsel, Sue Chrysanthou SC, and won an earlier claim that the network indemnify at least some of the costs.
Lehrmann has always denied the allegation and he pleaded not guilty at the criminal trial of the matter, which was aborted due to juror misconduct.
