Lawyers for former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann say Brittany Higgins’s evidence about the night she alleges he raped her is inconsistent with the version of events she gave to the Commonwealth as part of a $2.4 million settlement deed.
But Network Ten’s lawyers, who are defending from a defamation case brought by Mr Lehrmann, say the deed of settlement’s rape allegation is “entirely consistent with all other accounts that Ms Higgins has given”.
Mr Lehmann is suing Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over an interview with Ms Higgins on The Project about allegations she had been raped in Parliament House in 2019.
He was not named in the segment but claimed he was identifiable from the interview, and had therefore been defamed.
Mr Lehrmann’s trial over the alleged rape was abandoned due to juror misconduct, and there have been no findings against him.
In updated final submissions to the Federal Court, made public on Friday, Mr Lehrmann’s legal team said Ms Higgins had a “preparedness to tell lies”, both to the federal government to receive the settlement and to the ACT courts in Mr Lehrmann’s now-dropped prosecution.
Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers argued Ms Higgins had an “obsession with securing a vindication through the courts” of her allegation Mr Lehrmann raped her.
The submissions from Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers pointed to inconsistencies between representations from Ms Higgins in her signed deed from the settlement and other evidence given during the proceedings.
Mr Lehrmann’s legal team alleged these inconsistencies included whether Ms Higgins had agreed to take a taxi with Mr Lehrmann, whether Mr Lehrmann had led her to Minister Linda Reynolds’s office, whether Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann spoke the day after the alleged rape, and whether Ms Higgins had disclosed the alleged rape to the pair’s then-chief of staff Fiona Brown.
“In many places throughout these submissions it has been shown that Ms Higgins’s evidence in this proceeding on multiple elements of the allegation is itself contradicted by other out-of-court representations made, such as to The Project during the two sit down interviews,” the submission said.
The submissions suggested the court “reject Ms Higgins’s evidence in its entirety” unless it was corroborated by independent evidence or concurrent documents.
“No confidence can be placed in Ms Higgins’s understanding of her obligation to tell the truth under oath or on the most solemn of occasions,” the submissions said.
But updated submissions from Network Ten’s legal team said any inconsistencies in Ms Higgins’s evidence were “not matters bearing on the central fact that court must decide”.
“Strikingly, the allegation of rape in the deed is entirely consistent with all other accounts that Ms Higgins has given of that event,” the submissions said.
Ten’s lawyers also submitted that a suggestion by Mr Lehrmann’s legal team that false evidence he gave was all related to “relatively peripheral issues” should be rejected.
“Mr Lehrmann repeatedly gave untruthful evidence on matters of central importance in this proceeding,” the updated submissions said.
“None were peripheral matters; they were the directly relevant background to and immediate aftermath of what occurred in Senator Reynolds’ office on 23 March 2019.”
Ten’s lawyers also submitted that Mr Lehrmann’s conduct after March 26, 2019, was “indicative of someone who feared that Ms Higgins had disclosed the sexual assault”.
“Further, Mr Lehrmann was exposed at trial as someone who was prepared to lie to the police in circumstances where he knew those lies could be easily contradicted,” the submission said.
“For example telling the police in absolute terms that he had no alcohol in his office.”
Ten’s submissions also pointed to a ‘show cause’ letter to Ms Reynolds about the night of the alleged rape, which Mr Lehrmann described as “one of the most important letters that he needed to respond to in his entire professional life”.
“The response … contained lies about the circumstances of his entry to Parliament House and failed to address the question of what he did in the Ministerial Suite in the early hours of 23 March 2019.”
Federal Court Justice Michael Lee previously reserved his judgement on the defamation case, and told the court he intends to deliver his judgement in March or April.