Lawyers for the journalist Lisa Wilkinson will seek to prove the former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann raped his colleague Brittany Higgins as the journalist defends a defamation claim brought against her.
Wilkinson has denied she acted recklessly in reporting Higgins’s allegations of rape, describing the suggestion as “baseless”, and has indicated she will seek to rely on a truth defence in a defamation claim brought by Lehrmann.
Lehrmann has consistently maintained his innocence to allegations that he raped Higgins, a fellow political staffer, on a couch in the office of the then defence industry minister, Linda Reynolds.
Lehrmann is suing Wilkinson and Network Ten in the federal court over Wilkinson’s interview with Higgins on The Project, which was broadcast in February 2021. The former political staffer alleges the interview defamed him in four ways, most notably by suggesting he raped Higgins in the office of Reynolds, their then boss, in 2019.
Wilkinson’s defence, filed on Wednesday, shows she will argue that Lehrmann was not identified in the interview. She will also argue the one-year limitation period for bringing a defamation claim should apply. The interview and related publications in question were published well past that limitation period.
But if the court allows the claim to proceed despite the limitation period, as Lehrmann is arguing it should, Wilkinson will seek to rely on multiple defences and argue that Lehrmann was not identified in the reports.
Wilkinson says in her defence that she does not know and cannot admit “that the applicant was reasonably identified by any viewer” of the initial interview on 15 February 2021.
Her legal team, headed by the Sydney defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC, say they “sought particulars of identification from Lehrmann … and those particulars have not been sufficiently supplied”.
Wilkinson will also seek to argue that the imputations were true and that the case attracts qualified privilege.
In his claim, Lehrmann alleged Wilkinson acted recklessly in her reporting. Wilkinson denied the allegation in her defence.
“[The defendant] says that the allegation of recklessness … against Wilkinson is baseless, unjustified, unsupported by any fact and should be withdrawn, noting that a request for particulars on 15 February 2023 to Lehrmann’s lawyers requesting particulars of this allegation resulted in no facts being provided to support it.”
Lehrmann has consistently maintained his innocence to the allegation he raped Higgins. His trial was aborted due to juror misconduct and prosecutors declined to proceed with a retrial, citing concerns about Higgins’s mental health.
Lehrmann is also suing News Corp and the journalist Samantha Maiden over their reporting of Higgins’s allegations.
