Bruce Lehmann has lost his defamation lawsuit against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, ending a huge legal battle that has engulfed the United States.
Justice Michael Lee, in a two-and-a-half-hour live oral summary, aired Project’s interview with Brittany Higgins, who claims she was raped, on Monday, February 15, 2021, when former Liberal staffer Wilkinson He and Teng said that there was no defamation. Houses of Parliament.
He weighed the odds and found that Lehman raped Higgins on a minister’s couch in Parliament House in 2019.
“In summary, that early morning, after a long night of merry drinking and successfully coaxing Mr. Higgins back to a secluded area, Mr. Lehman had sex with a woman he found attractive. “We believe it is likely that he was intoxicated,” Lee said, adding that he knew he was intoxicated.
“Mr. Lehmann made the mistake of running away from the lion’s den and coming back to get his hat,” Lee said after Mr. Lehman’s criminal trial was terminated due to jury misconduct, and later appeared on Channel 10 and Channel 10.・Talked about the fact that he had filed a civil lawsuit against Ten. Wilkinson.
Mr Lehmann denies the rape charge and pleaded not guilty at a trial in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, which was halted due to jury misconduct. Prosecutors did not request a new trial for Higgins due to concerns about her mental health.
Mr Lehmann and Mr Wilkinson both appeared in court for sentencing. Both men were in the courtroom for much of the five-week trial, sitting on opposite sides of the courtroom.
complete judgment Published online.
In an interview with The Project, Ms Higgins told Ms Wilkinson that she was sexually assaulted in the early hours of Saturday, March 23, 2019, on the couch in the office of her then-boss, former defense industry minister Linda Reynolds.
The Project did not name Mr. Lehmann as the Liberal Party official at the center of the allegations, but Mr. Lee noticed that Mr. Lehmann could be identified on the broadcast.
After the criminal trial was waived, Mr. Rehman began proceedings against Network Ten in federal court in February 2023.
In his ruling, Lee said the inference that Mr Teng and Mr Wilkinson raped Higgins proved probabilistically true.
The applicant has denied ever raping Higgins or having any sexual relationship with her.
“Did you sexually assault Brittany Higgins in that office that night?” his barrister Stephen Whybrow SC asked during his trial last December.
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“Not at all,” Lehmann replied.
Lehman admitted during five days of witness questioning that he told three different stories, including two that were lies, about why he and Higgins visited Parliament House after hours after a night out in Canberra.
He told Mr Lee he must have “made a mistake” in telling the Australian Federal Police that he did not have alcohol in his office. Under cross-examination, he admitted that he had multiple bottles of whiskey and gin in his possession at the time.
When the defense filed its case, the court heard that Higgins weighed 60 kg at the time of the alleged rape, and experts said that a woman her size could have had a blood alcohol level of 0.23% at the time of the alleged rape. He testified that he was sexually active.
Ms Higgins was on the witness stand for four days, during which she became emotional as she gave graphic details of the alleged rape and the deterioration of her relationship with her employer after she reported the incident.
“When I was being raped, my main concern wasn’t where my dress was…I was more deeply concerned about the unwanted penis inside my vagina than I was about the dress. “I was there,” Higgins said through tears.
Mr. Lehmann maintains his innocence. At his criminal trial in 2022, he pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent and denied that any sexual activity occurred.
In December of that year, prosecutors dropped the rape charges against Higgins, saying a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to her health.
