Bruce Lehrmann has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his failed defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. The former Liberal staffer had sought to overturn a civil finding that he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
In documents filed to the High Court, Lehrmann's legal team argued that the initial finding by Federal Court judge Michael Lee was 'compromised' because Lee conducted his own research on sexual assault victims. They claimed this meant the full bench's dismissal of his appeal was also compromised.
The application for special leave to appeal contended that Lee 'inappropriately' obtained extraneous non-legal material, such as academic literature, which should have been limited to expert material in agreed facts. The full bench had also found that Lehrmann knew Higgins did not consent, a step further than Lee's original finding.
Lehrmann's legal team argued that the full court erred by relying on Lee's compromised findings. They also disputed the definition of 'rape' in the publication context, claiming the ordinary reasonable viewer would have understood it as 'rape of a certain kind' rather than any rape.
The case has its origins in 2021 when Higgins alleged she was raped on a couch in Parliament House in 2019. Lehrmann was charged but the criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct, and charges were later dropped. His defamation suit against Ten and Wilkinson was dismissed in 2023.
