Analysis

The stupidity of Bruce Lehrmann

The ex-political adviser turned victory into defeat in the quest for money. He will now be known as the rapist who put himself on trial, and lost.

Aaron PatrickSenior correspondent

Apr 15, 2024 – 5.57pm

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When the final moment came, five years and 24 days after that fateful, drunken night in Parliament House, Bruce Lehrmann couldn’t bring himself to look at his judge.

As Michael Lee uttered the definitive “Mr Lehrmann raped Miss Higgins” in Federal Court at about 1.15pm on Monday, the 28-year-old ex-ministerial adviser stared at his phone, as though it might save him from the eternal ignominy of being known as the rapist who put himself on trial and lost.

Bruce Lehrmann departs court on Monday after Justice Michael Lee found he raped Brittany Higgins. Wolter Peeters

The victim wasn’t present. One of the prosecutors was. Broadcaster Lisa Wilkinson, who was more responsible than anyone else for making Brittany Higgins famous, sat through the two-and-half-hour summary judgment on the far side of room.

After Lee left, Wilkinson faced her barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, who held her by the shoulders for two minutes and talked intently. (The lawyer later said they discussed “secret women’s business”.) Chrysanthou then embraced Wilkinson, turned to her solicitor, Anthony Jefferies, and slapped him loudly on the back.

“Well done!” she said.

Monday was indeed a victory for Network Ten and Wilkinson, in that Lehrmann’s defamation lawsuit failed. Who will have to pay their mammoth legal costs hasn’t been determined, but logic points to Lehrmann, a man unemployed and probably unemployable.

Wilkinson and Ten won, but lost too. What Wilkinson had called the “most important work I would ever do” failed to meet the standards of basic journalism.

Brittany Higgins outside the Federal Court in Sydney last November, with partner David Sharaz, left, and lawyer Leon Zwier. James Brickwood

There was no fact-checking of Higgins’ story, Lee said. Lehrmann wasn’t even asked for his side, and Wilkinson, heading towards the Logie podium, never questioned the underlying truth of the allegations. Lee accused her of “a lack of candour in the witness box”.

The Higgins hassle

While Lee ruled Lehrmann had non-consensual sex with Higgins – the deciding question in the case – he refuted the politically devastating allegation in her 2021 interview on the Ten’s The Project program: that Scott Morrison’s Coalition government wanted to suppress the rape to protect itself.

Three years later, it can be hard to remember how intense the anger was. Some of the people who marched on March 15, 2021, on behalf of Higgins held the prime minister responsible for Higgins’ assault.

Her boss, then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds was accused, unfairly, of callously hoping the Higgins hassle would solve itself.

“I was just this sudden problem for her,” Higgins told News Corp journalist Samantha Maiden, who Lehrmann also sued. “I felt like they were ticking a box. That they had to have this conversation with me in order to say on the record ‘We told her she could go to the police.’”

Lisa Wilkinson outside court on Monday, with barrister Sue Chrysanthou on her right. Wolter Peeters

In reality, chief of staff Fiona Brown, the point person on Higgins’ allegations, risked her professional standing by trying to help the young woman.

There was more that wasn’t true, or questionable: that the Australian Federal Police investigation was politically compromised (Lee praised the expertise of its specialist sex-crime investigators); that a bruise on Higgins’ thigh was caused by Lehrmann (Lee pointed out it was on the wrong leg); or that the Liberal Party had tried to get rid of Higgins (it offered her three jobs after winning the 2019 election).

As for Lehrmann, Lee made the obvious conclusion from the video and testimony of March 22, 2019, when the pair gathered at The Dock in Canberra: the 24-year-old got his colleague drunk because he wanted to have sex with her.

After some passionate kissing at another bar, they returned to Reynold’s ministerial suite because Lehrmann’s girlfriend was at home. The girlfriend rang around the time that he was on top of Higgins, who was so drunk she couldn’t stop him. (Lee didn’t accept that Higgins yelled out: “No, no!“)

It wasn’t a simple case. Both sides lied. Evidence went missing. The media became a participant.

At its heart, though, the lawsuit was a monument to Bruce Lehrmann’s stupidity. Having won the criminal case in Canberra, he went looking for money.

Instead, he exposed himself as a liar and a rapist.