Bruce Lehrmann has appealed the federal court docket’s discovering that he raped Brittany Higgins on the grounds that the sexual assault described by Justice Michael Lee was “substantially inconsistent” with the violent rape portrayed on The Undertaking.
In April final 12 months Lee discovered that, on the stability of chances, Lehrmann raped Higgins in Parliament Home in 2019 and the previous Liberal staffer was not defamed by Community Ten and Lisa Wilkinson once they broadcast an interview with Higgins in 2021.
Lehrmann is interesting the judgment and has filed submissions within the federal court docket outlining a number of grounds for attraction.
His attraction lawyer Zali Burrows mentioned Higgins advised The Undertaking the incident concerned “forceful sexual intercourse” however the case discovered by Lee “involved no force”.
“The problem is that the broadcast clearly suggests a violent rape, where the complainant was in tears and repeatedly refused consent, of which repeated refusal the perpetrator must have been aware,” the submission mentioned.
“That is quite different from a non-violent rape involving inadvertent recklessness as to whether there was consent.”
Lehrmann’s authorized crew say he was denied procedural equity as a result of the case which was discovered to be true was not put to him in cross-examination.
“He was not cross-examined adequately on issues arising in the truth defence and accordingly, there has been a breach of procedural fairness to the extent we submit must result in the judgment against Mr Lehrmann being set aside,” the submission mentioned.
Lehrmann has additionally argued the definition of rape was misconstrued by Lee and was not the unusual particular person’s understanding of the phrase.
“The rape described graphically by Ms Higgins included allegations of violence, an assault, called out ‘no’ on multiple occasions and numerous references to an assault and trauma,” the submission mentioned.
“The ordinary reasonable reader would have, particularly in this context, exclude rape by this form of non-advertent recklessness and would probably mean a violent rape with express lack of consent.”
In his judgment Lee mentioned he was “satisfied a rape took place” however he didn’t settle for it had been established that Higgins was crying and telling Lehrmann to cease at the least half a dozen occasions or that he crushed “his leg against her leg so forcefully as to cause a large bruise” or that he left her “with her dress up around her waist”.
The third floor is that it was open to Lee to easily say “I just do not know” who to consider which might have led to a discovering Ten and Wilkinson hadn’t confirmed their case.
This argument is predicated on antagonistic credit score findings Lee made towards each Higgins and Lehrmann as a result of he didn’t assume that they had been fully truthful.
“This is an exceptional case, and it was open to His Honour to simply say ‘I just do not know’ who to believe when he has made adverse credit findings against both Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann,” the submission mentioned.
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“His Honour did not believe the account of either Mr Lehrmann or Ms Higgins.”
Lee mentioned in his judgment that if Lehrmann had gained he would have been entitled to damages of $20,000.
Burrows mentioned if Lehrmann is profitable in reversing the discovering in respect of justification he’s entitled to “aggravated damages of a considerable amount”.
In October Justice Wendy Abraham allowed the attraction and mentioned the discovering by Lee “is extremely serious” and the appellate course of is a “fundamental aspect of the administration of justice”.
Abraham mentioned elements of Ten and Wilkinson’s case had failed at trial and all events now claimed Lee’s judgment contained errors.
Wilkinson has additionally challenged Lee’s discovering, however on the grounds that she acted fairly in broadcasting an allegation of rape.
In her submissions to the attraction, Wilkinson mentioned the certified privilege defence “should have been found to have been established” within the authentic judgment.
