Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial LIVE BLOG: Network Ten’s lawyer lashes Bruce Lehrmann’s ‘monstrous’ legal move as defamation trial reaches its conclusion – as his counsel prepares for a ruthless comeback
Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Steven Whybrow SC started delivering his closing submissions on Friday morning.
He slammed Lisa Wilkinson, Ms Higgins’ best friend Emma Webster and her fiancé David Sharaz for failing to tell the former staffer to go to the police with her rape allegation, rather than litigating it through the media.
‘Oh, if she had taken the advice of police not to litigate this through the media,’ Mr Whybrow said.
‘Oh, if only the people around her, like Sharaz, Webster, Wilkinson and politicians.
‘If only they had said “Brittany, this is an important story but you should go to the police, this story can wait, let us deal with the allegations against Mr Lehrmann and you can deal with your story down the track”.’
He said if that had happened, ‘we wouldn’t be here’.
‘We wouldn’t have had what appears to be a virus of madness that spread where subjudice went out the window – where the rights of the individual ceased to exist.’
He also slammed everyone who gave Ms Higgins a platform to speak about her rape allegations, before Mr Lehrmann had even been charged.
Ms Higgins addressed a crowd of thousands at the March4Justice women’s march outside Parliament House in March 2021 and said she was raped in the building, before her allegations were tried before a court.
She was also given a platform to speak at the National Press Club in January 2022, during which she referred to ‘my rapist’, while standing next to Grace Tame, who is a proven victim of sexual assault.
Mr Whybrow said she was lauded for her bravery at the National Press Club, adding that her ‘allegations had not been tested and the only inference is that they don’t need to be’.
‘How dare we have due process or the presumption of innocence before Mr Lehrmann had even been spoken to by the police, the complainant is making a serious allegation [that] is publicly broadcast that she was raped,’ he said.
‘Anybody trying to provide a counter narrative to that story is shouted down as some sort of rape apologist or anti woman or a misogynist.’
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