Bruce Lehrmann is a man with a tenuous attachment to the truth who cannot be believed except if his evidence is backed up by other sources, a Federal Court judge has said.
The remarks were made by Justice Michael Lee on Monday as he handed down judgment in Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
“Mr Lehrmann has no compunction from departing from the truth if he thought it was expedient,” the judge said.
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“I am satisfied that in important respects, he told deliberate lies.”
The 28-year-old is suing Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson for defamation over a February 2021 report on The Project in which Brittany Higgins claimed he raped her in a Parliament House office almost two years prior.
Justice Lee described both Lehrmann and Ms Higgins as “unreliable historians” when recounting what occurred on that fateful night.
The judge said Ms Higgins had been loose with the truth regarding allegations made to Ten in 2021 that members of the then-coalition government had sought to silence her in reporting the alleged rape.
“’The cover-up allegation was objectively short on facts but long on speculation,” he said.
But Justice Lee found that any incorrect statements made to the police in 2019 were not inconsistent with remarks being made by a “genuine victim of sexual assault”.
A judgment in the bitterly fought defamation battle had been due to be delivered earlier in April, but the date was postponed when Ten successfully reopened the case for further evidence.
Justice Lee said that Lehrmann was identified by Ten’s report, despite denials from the network.
The ex-Liberal staffer claims his reputation was ruined and is seeking significant damages.
Ten has defended its reporting, saying claims in the interview were true and in the public interest as they involved alleged sexual abuse in Parliament House.
Justice Lee will have to consider whether or not, on the balance of probabilities, the alleged sexual assault occurred in the office of their then-boss, Senator Linda Reynolds.
Lehrmann denies the sexual assault allegation and a criminal case was dropped in 2022, with no findings made against him.
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