A Federal Court judge will hand down his judgement in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Channel Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in a matter of days.
Mr Lehrmann launched defamation proceedings over an episode of The Project in February 2021, during which Brittany Higgins went public with her rape allegations for the first time in an interview with Wilkinson.
Ms Higgins alleged Mr Lehrmann raped her in Parliament House in March 2019, when they were both staffers working for the Liberal Party.
He was not named in the broadcast but claimed friends and colleagues were able to identify him as the alleged rapist. He has always maintained his innocence.
The month-long trial was heard before Justice Michael Lee in December, with judgement initially set down for 10.15am on April 4.
However, the matter was reopened last Tuesday after Network Ten successfully argued there was new evidence from former Channel Seven employee Taylor Auerbach which was not available during the trial.
On Tuesday afternoon, the court announced the judgement would now be handed down at 10.15am on April 15.
Bruce Lehrmann (pictured outside court) sued Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson
The defamation claim was over an interview Lisa Wilkinson (pictured) did with Brittany Higgins in February 2021
Justice Lee will deliver his reasons orally and he will release a written judgement on the court’s website.
Ten’s application to reopen the case hinged evidence by Mr Auerbach, who was on the team responsible for securing exclusive interviews with Mr Lehrmann on Channel Seven’s Spotlight program.
Mr Auerbach was called to the witness stand on Thursday and accused Mr Lehrmann of leaking confidential texts and recordings to Seven ahead of his exclusive interviews, which aired in June and August last year.
The information had originally been collected by Australian Federal Police during the investigation into Ms Higgins’ rape allegations, before parts of it were broadcast during Mr Lehrmann’s Spotlight interviews.
Evidence collected during a police investigation is protected by the Harman undertaking, which means it cannot be used outside a particular court case unless it is released by a court.
Mr Auerbach also claimed Channel Seven paid thousands of dollars to cover Mr Lehrmann’s cocaine, prostitutes and lavish dinners to try and entice him into signing a deal for exclusive interviews.
The network and Mr Lehrmann have denied those claims.
Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case was reopened on Tuesday due to new evidence from former Seven employee, Taylor Auerbach
Wilkinson’s barrister Barry Dean told the court on Thursday that Mr Auerbach’s evidence was to be believed, partly because he ‘came to this court and freely made submissions’.
However, Justice Lee suggested otherwise, saying: ‘Yeah but there’s a question about why he did that.’
During his cross-examination by Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC, Mr Auerbach admitted that he ‘hated’ his former Spotlight boss, Steve Jackson.
On Thursday, Justice Lee pointed out that it was uncommon for someone to sit in the witness box and say they ‘hate’ another person.
‘One could rationally form the view that this is a man who desperately wanted to do as much damage to his previous employer as he could conceivably do,’ he said.
‘He’s a man who wanted to make a range of allegations against people under absolute privilege.’
Evidence given in court is not subject to defamation proceedings.
Justice Lee noted that did not mean Mr Auerbach was ‘not a truth-teller’.
