Bruce Lehrmann defamation case LIVE updates: Justice Michael Lee set to hand down judgment in high-stakes trial

The Federal Court is streaming Federal Court Justice Michael Lee’s decision in the Lehrmann case. Lee will read extracts of his written judgment from 10.15am in Sydney.

You can watch the livestream below:

The judge said Lehrmann was also “less than candid” in his evidence in court about the benefits he received from the Seven Network before he signed an exclusive interview deal with its Spotlight program last year.

He said Lehrmann had also made “false representations” about documents he provided to Seven.

Justice Michael Lee said “hyperbolic submissions” about the credibility of witnesses in court cases are not uncommon, but this was one of those cases where expressing criticism is warranted.

“I do not think that Mr Lehrmann is a compulsive liar,” he said, but “I am satisfied in important respects he told deliberate lies”.

Lee said he would “not accept anything [Lehrmann] said”, except where it amounted to an admission, accorded with the inherent probabilities, or was corroborated by a witness whose evidence he accepted.

He said an example of Lehrmann’s “false out-of-court statements or unsatisfactory evidence are legion”. This included his initial denial that he found Brittany Higgins attractive, he said.

He said Lehrmann also gave false evidence when he denied any intimacy with Higgins at a Canberra nightclub, 88mph, in the hours before Higgins alleges he raped her in Parliament House.

Lee said the evidence of a former staffer, Lauren Gain, that Higgins and Lehrmann shared a passionate kiss at that venue was “compelling”.

Justice Lee said he was satisfied Lehrmann had established a threshold issue in the case: namely, that he was identified by Ten’s The Project even though he was not named by Brittany Higgins in her interview with the broadcaster.

It means he must consider Ten and Lisa Wilkinson’s defences of truth and qualified privilege.

He said that contemporaneous records in the case, including CCTV footage, are a “far surer guide” to what happened on the night in question in March 2019 than other evidence.

Justice Michael Lee says that the Lehrmann litigation is “a credit case”, meaning that it involves an assessment involving two people who are in different ways unreliable historians.

To describe Bruce Lehrmann as a poor witness would be “an exercise in understatement”, Lee said, and his “attachment to the truth” could be described as a tenuous one.

However, he said that there are also problems with the reliability of Brittany Higgins’ evidence.

He says that Higgins’ engagement with the media in February 2021 emphasised an alleged political cover up of her sexual assault allegation.

Here is what Lee said in full:

This is a case where credit findings are central and sometimes an explanation other than mendacity is not rationally available. To remark that Mr Lehrmann is a poor witness is an exercise in understatement. His attachment to the truth was a tenuous one, by fashioning his responses in what he perceived to be his forensic interests.

Ms Brittany Higgins was also an unsatisfactory witness, who made some allegations who made her a heroine to one group of people.

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee quips: “I think I got up to the point where I said omnishambles.”

He jokes that perhaps the court should recall the UK-based expert lipreader in the proceedings, who gave evidence for Ten, to decipher what he said when the YouTube stream was muted.

Lee said that his judgment is not written for people who had made up their mind before any evidence was heard in the case.

A technical issue affecting audio from the Federal Court’s YouTube stream has been resolved. Federal Court Justice Michael Lee will return to court shortly.

The Herald’s Jacqueline Maley is in courtroom one in the Federal Court in Sydney and has heard parts of Justice Michael Lee’s decision that were not broadcast owing to a technical issue.

“For more than a few this has become a proxy for broader cultural and political conflicts,” Lee said of the defamation litigation.

“An astute observer would have gleaned from the trial this case is not as straightforward as some might suggest.”

The judge said that “only one man and one woman know the truth with certitude,” but they are “two people who are both in different ways unreliable historians”.

“People give unreliable evidence for various reasons and distinguishing between a false memory and a lie can be difficult,” Lee said.

Just before Justice Michael Lee adjourned for the court to address a technical issue, he had described the Lehrmann litigation as follows:

It is a singular case. The underlying controversy has become a cause célèbre. Given its unexpected detours and collateral damage, it may be fitting to describe it as an omnishambles.

There has been a problem with the audio on the Federal Court’s YouTube stream. The court has adjourned briefly while the technical issue is addressed.

Justice Michael Lee says he will deliver an “oral overview” of his written decision, which is 324 pages long.

That full judgment will be published on the Federal Court website. He says the litigation might fairly be described as an “omnishambles”.