Bruce Lehrmann has had a resounding loss in the federal court, which dismissed his appeal against a defamation judgment that found on the balance of probabilities that he raped Brittany Higgins.
The judgment on Wednesday from the full bench of the federal court also took aim at some of Justice Michael Lee’s findings about Lehrmann’s knowledge of Brittany Higgins’ lack of consent and the reasonableness of Lisa Wilkinson’s journalism.
Here are five things you need to know about Wednesday’s appeal judgment:
Appeal judges went further than the trial judge on rape finding
The full bench of the federal court, justices Michael Wigney, Craig Colvin and Wendy Abraham, went further than Justice Michael Lee in finding Lehrmann was aware that Higgins did not consent to sexual intercourse in Parliament House in 2019.
Lee found the then Liberal staffer was “so intent upon gratification to be indifferent to Ms Higgins’s consent and hence went ahead with sexual intercourse without caring whether she consented”.
But the appeal said Lee “should have found actual knowledge on the part of Mr Lehrmann that Ms Higgins did not consent to sexual intercourse”.
Lehrmann lost on all of his appeal grounds
Lehrmann lost all four grounds of his appeal: that it was procedurally unfair to Lehrmann; that an ordinary person viewing The Project would have thought he committed a violent rape with lack of consent; that Lee erred in finding Network Ten and Wilkinson had discharged the burden of proof in relation to the rape; and that he should have been awarded more than $20,000 should he have won.
Appeal judges addressed the qualified privilege defence
The appeal judgment addressed Lee’s finding that there was a lack of reasonableness on the part of Wilkinson.
The trio “respectfully” disagreed with elements of Lee’s deliberations about Wilkinson’s journalism and said he appeared not to have considered Wilkinson’s supporting evidence, including Higgins’ report of rape in Parliament House to the Australian federal police and questions asked by Ten of witnesses before broadcast.
“There were matters supporting the account given by Ms Higgins that she had been sexually assaulted on the couch in the Minister’s office to which his Honour did not refer in considering reasonableness,” they said.
Lehrmann’s growing debt
Lehrmann put on pause his debt of $2m in costs for the original defamation trial only to lose the appeal. The 30-year-old now has to add significant costs for Ten and Wilkinson to his debt.
The court has heard he can’t afford legal representation and has no funds to repay the debt. His lawyers acted pro bono in both trials and he is a full-time law student.
Lehrmann’s lawyer claimed her client is an ‘inspiration’
Lehrmann’s lawyer Zali Burrows claimed outside court that her client was “an inspiration to those who say they’ve been wrongly accused”.
Her contention that Lehrmann was denied procedural fairness and natural justice was rejected by the court.
During the trial Burrows painted Lehrmann as a victim and said he was “Australia’s most hated man”.
She revealed Lehrmann was not giving up the fight to clear his name despite two significant losses and was considering special leave to appeal to the high court.
