Network Ten has rejected an allegation by Bruce Lehrmann that it employed “bullying tactics” by insisting the Centrelink recipient pay a $200,000 security ahead of any appeal.
Lehrmann has launched an appeal after a defamation trial judge ruled in favour of Network Ten, finding on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins at Parliament House.
On Monday, Lehrmann asked the court to stay the costs order of $2m made by Justice Michael Lee in the defamation case, and rejected a demand from Ten for a security of costs order to proceed with the appeal.
Lehrmann’s lawyer, Zali Burrows, said her client is too “scared” to attend court since becoming “arguably Australia’s most hated man” and the publicity surrounding the defamation trial has “smashed” his mental health.
The court heard Lehrmann was an unemployed young man with his “whole life behind him” after being “called a rapist” and he could not afford to pay his costs for losing the defamation case against Ten and Lisa Wilkinson or provide a $200,000 security bond.
“I cannot imagine a worse type of defamation than being called a rapist,” Burrows said.
“This application for security, of course, is pretty much a bullying tactic … [to] shut down this appeal because they know that my client will not be able to come up with $200,000.
“It’s a bit rich [Ten and Wilkinson] asking him to put up $200,000 when they are one of the contributors as to why he’s pretty much unemployable,” she said.
“The only shot he’d probably ever have in making money is by going on OnlyFans or something silly like that. But other than that, they know that he cannot come up with this.”
Ten’s barrister, Dr Matt Collins KC, rejected the bullying claim and asked the court to ensure Lehrmann can at least pay some of his client’s costs for the appeal.
“I just don’t want to be seen to be acquiescing to the allegation that there were ‘bullying tactics’ on the part of the respondents,” Collins said.
“In our submission there’s nothing improper in a successful litigant [Ten] seeking to enforce a cost order made by this court, or seeking security for the cost of an appeal in respect of the enforcement of the bankruptcy.”
Burrows argued there was a “genuine public interest” in allowing Lehrmann an appeal and a risk that if the security of costs is granted it may abort the appeal.
Collins rejected the public interest claim. “He’s had his day in court, he had a very expensive trial which was conducted in the full glare of the entire nation,” Collins said.
“He was very ably represented and his honour had made findings at the end of the day.”
Barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, for Wilkinson, agreed that Lehrmann “had his day in court” and should not be given a second chance.
“He came to this court by choice,” Chrysanthou said.
“He came here pleading his first imputation as one of rape. He did so having escaped the criminal process.
“He chose to enter the fray. He walked over the line and asked this court, knowing the likelihood that my client in Network Ten would plead truth, he made that decision, and that’s a factor against the arguments that he would make on public interest.”
Collins said some of Lehrmann’s appeal grounds are “faintly arguable” while others are “hopeless”.
In an expanded appeal of his defamation loss, Lehrmann said Lee should not have ruled that Network Ten had proven its substantial truth defence.
Collins told the court Lehrmann was served with a bankruptcy notice on 8 August, but his client would not move forward with the bankruptcy until Justice Wendy Abraham had made her decision.
Abraham has reserved her decision.
In April, Lee found Lehrmann was not defamed by Wilkinson and Ten when The Project broadcast an interview with Brittany Higgins on 15 February 2021 in which she alleged she was raped by a staffer.
Lee found on the balance of probabilities Lehrmann raped Higgins on a minister’s couch in Parliament House in 2019.
Lehrmann has always denied the rape allegation and pleaded not guilty at his criminal trial in the Australian Capital Territory supreme court which was aborted. Prosecutors did not seek a retrial due to concerns about Higgins’s mental health.
