Bruce Lehrmann is eagerly awaiting the judgment in his defamation case against Network Ten as the trial was unexpectedly reopened at the last minute.
Justice Michael Lee was originally scheduled to deliver the judgment on April 4 but postponed it until Monday due to new evidence brought in by Ten regarding Lehrmann’s 2023 Spotlight interview with the Seven Network.
The judge decided to reopen the case and heard allegations last week that Lehrmann leaked private texts from Brittany Higgins before his interview, which was seen as an abuse of the court’s processes.
Higgins accuses Lehrmann of raping her in a Parliament House office in 2019, which he denies. A criminal trial in 2022 was abandoned due to juror misconduct, resulting in no findings against Lehrmann.
During the reopened trial last week, former Seven producer Taylor Auerbach claimed he witnessed Lehrmann buying drugs and soliciting sex workers in a Sydney hotel paid for by the network.
Auerbach stated in an affidavit that Lehrmann shared messages between Higgins and others, which were part of a confidential police file used in the criminal trial, with an implicit promise not to use them for any other purpose.
In his defamation case against Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson, Lehrmann alleges he was defamed in a February 2021 interview on The Project, seeking substantial damages for damage to his reputation.
However, Ten and Wilkinson’s lawyers argue that Lehrmann is untrustworthy and discredited, and that he abused the court’s processes through leaked material and false claims.
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