Latest / The Front / Federal Court throws out Bruce Lehrmann’s ‘hopeless’ case

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Federal Court throws out Bruce Lehrmann’s ‘hopeless’ case · The Front

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  Speaker 1: Today's biggest news from The Australian. I'm Claire Harvey with
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  Speaker 1: the Front's afternoon headlines. Bruce Lemon's legal bills just got
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  Speaker 1: a whole lot bigger. He's lost an appeal against the
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  Speaker 1: Federal Court finding that he raped Brittany Higgins and now
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  Speaker 1: he has to pay more legal costs for his opponents
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  Speaker 1: Network ten and Lisa Wilkinson. The Full Bench of the
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  Speaker 1: Federal Court on Wednesday upheld the original decision by Justice
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  Speaker 1: Michael Lee that, on the balance of probabilities, Lehman raped
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  Speaker 1: Higgins in the parliamentary office of the now retired Senator
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  Speaker 1: Linda Reynolds. Lehman sued Network ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson
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  Speaker 1: for defamation over a twenty twenty one interview on The Project.
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  Speaker 1: Justice Lee, in his original decision, found Ten and Wilkinson
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  Speaker 1: had successfully established the truth of Higgins's claim, although he
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  Speaker 1: was critical of their story on the project and also
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  Speaker 1: found inconsistencies in Higgins's account. Lee also rejected higgins claim
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  Speaker 1: aired on the Project that Scott Morrison's government, including Reynolds
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  Speaker 1: into her chief of staff Fiona Brown, had covered up
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  Speaker 1: the rape and pressured Higgins to keep quiet. In his appeal,
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  Speaker 1: Lahman argued via his lawyer Zali Burrows, that Justice Lee
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  Speaker 1: had erred in his original judgment and that he had
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  Speaker 1: not been given the opportunity in court to properly address
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  Speaker 1: the question of whether he knew Higgins was not consenting
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  Speaker 1: to sex. Back in April, we used a voice actor
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  Speaker 1: to recreate the words spoken in the appeal hearing by
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  Speaker 1: Burrows representing Laman.
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  Speaker 2: Mister Lehman is arguably probably Australia's most hated man. He's
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  Speaker 2: a young man, he's got his whole life behind him
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  Speaker 2: and he really does need his day in court to
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  Speaker 2: basically defend this charge of being labeled a rapist, even
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  Speaker 2: though it's on a civil standard. He's forever going to
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  Speaker 2: be on the Internet and will be labeled a rapist
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  Speaker 2: and people don't know the difference between a criminal standard
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  Speaker 2: or civil state.
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  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, Justice Michael Wigney read a summary of the
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  Speaker 1: Court's reasons dismissing the appeal and ordering Lemon to pay
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  Speaker 1: ten and Wilkinson's legal fees.
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  Speaker 3: The fore Court has found that the way in which
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  Speaker 3: the primary judge dealt with and determined the proceedings was
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  Speaker 3: not procedurally unfair to mister Lehman. The facts, as found
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  Speaker 3: by the Primate Judge fell within the terms of Network
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  Speaker 3: ten and Miss Wilkinson's pleaded draft defense.
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  Speaker 1: The barrister representing Network ten, Matthew Collins Casey, had earlier
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  Speaker 1: told the Court Lehman's appeal grounds were hopeless and weak.
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  Speaker 1: On Tuesday, Federal Court Justices Wigney, Craig Colvin, and Wendy
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  Speaker 1: Abraham agreed.
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  Speaker 3: The full Court has determined to dismiss mister Lehman's appeal
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  Speaker 3: with costs. The Court has found that the primary judge
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  Speaker 3: did not err in any of the ways alleged by
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  Speaker 3: mister Lehmann in his grounds of appeal and his submissions
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  Speaker 3: in support of them.
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  Speaker 1: The appeal judges agreed with Justice Michael lead At Lahmann
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  Speaker 1: knew Higgins was very drunk and not capable of can
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  Speaker 1: senting to sex.
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  Speaker 3: Mister Lehman was also well and truly aware that the
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  Speaker 3: case against him included a claim that he had been
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  Speaker 3: reckless as to Miss higgins consent.
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  Speaker 1: The judgment says, and I quote, the only reasonable inference
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  Speaker 1: is that at some point before sexual intercourse commenced, mister
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  Speaker 1: Lemmon did turn his mind to whether miss Higgins consented
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  Speaker 1: to sex and was aware that she was not consenting,
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  Speaker 1: but proceeded Nonetheless, they also found an ordinary viewer of
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  Speaker 1: the project interview would understand the meaning of rape within
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  Speaker 1: the context of Lisa Wilkinson's interview with Brittany Higgins. In
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  Speaker 1: their reasons, the judges wrote, quote, the primary judge was
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  Speaker 1: correct to conclude that the ordinary person viewing the broadcast
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  Speaker 1: would think that a man would have raped a woman
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  Speaker 1: if he had sex with her without her consent, in
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  Speaker 1: circumstances where he was so bent on his gratification and
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  Speaker 1: indifferent to the rights of the woman that he ignored
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  Speaker 1: or was indifferent to the required meant for her consent.
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  Speaker 1: The judgment also endorses the findings made by Justice Lee
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  Speaker 1: about both Lehman and Higgins. Lee said both of them
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  Speaker 1: had made inconsistent statements and couldn't be accepted in their entirety,
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  Speaker 1: but he believed Higgins's account of being raped.
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  Speaker 3: This was not a case where there were two competing accounts,
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  Speaker 3: each of which had been found to lack any credibility.
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  Speaker 3: While the primary judge made some adverse findings concerning the
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  Speaker 3: credibility of miss Higgins's account, his honor nevertheless accepted key
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  Speaker 3: parts of her evidence about the sexual assault. In contrast,
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  Speaker 3: the primary judge rejected the entirety of mister Lehman's acount
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  Speaker 3: and found that he had deliberately lied in important respects.
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  Speaker 1: You can check out that story right now at Theaustralian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dou and come back to the front first
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: thing in the morning for a full breakdown of a
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: geopolitical feud that's blowing up right now, China versus Japan.