live blog for the latest updates from the courtroom<\/a>.<\/p>\nMr Lehrmann has now returned to the Federal Court to seek to overturn that finding, represented by his solicitor, Zali Burrows.<\/p>\n
![\"Bruce](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/91bc6fd7d7ef126ff1bea379ea8acd54\")
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Bruce Lehrmann is seeking to strike out the truth defence which scuttled his defamation claim against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. (AAP: Dean Lewins)<\/p>\n
Mr Lehrmann is being represented solely by Ms Burrows, because the court heard he was unable to afford his preferred barrister, Sydney silk Guy Reynolds.<\/p>\n
“Mr Lehrmann couldn’t afford Mr Reynolds, which we really wanted, so we apologise in advance,” Ms Burrows told the court.<\/p>\n
Ms Burrows conceded she was “not as prepared” as the opposing counsel but said “I’m just going to try and do the best I can”.<\/p>\n
‘I don’t understand the logic’<\/p>\n
This morning, in spelling out the first of four grounds of appeal, Ms Burrows said Mr Lehrmann was denied procedural fairness.<\/p>\n
“The primary judge found that the rape occurred in a particular way that wasn’t put to Mr Lehrmann in defence,” she told the court.<\/p>\n
“He was taken by surprise as to the nature of the rape \u2026 it was pleaded as a violent rape, when His Honour [Justice Lee] found it was a non-violent rape.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/813a22763739c22ca967289d4957b68a\")
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Zali Burrows is Mr Lehrmann’s sole legal representative for his appeal in the Federal Court.\u00a0 (AAP: Mick Tsikas)<\/p>\n
In response, Justice Craig Colvin, one of three judges presiding over the appeal, said, “I’m not sure that that’s a concept that I understand”.<\/p>\n
Sexual assault\u00a0support lines:<\/p>\n
Justice Michael Wigney also weighed in, pointing out that Mr Lehrmann had consistently maintained his innocence and that no sexual intercourse took place.<\/p>\n
He said it would not have made sense for Mr Lehrmann to have faced questions about the nature of an act he was denying.<\/p>\n
“He would have maintained that there was no violence, because there was no sexual intercourse,” Justice Wigney said.<\/p>\n
“How could he have been questioned about the particulars?”<\/p>\n
Justice Colvin voiced his confusion.<\/p>\n
“I don’t understand the logic of the submission,” he said.’All rape is violent’<\/p>\n
Mr Lehrmann’s appeal raises questions about how the court considered the meaning of rape to the ordinary, reasonable person.<\/p>\n
Ms Burrows relied on her written submissions, which urged the court to discern a difference between the seriousness of a rape that is violent and one that is non-violent.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/453ed4633de9da6b0aa685157dcdb37c\")
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Matthew Collins is representing Network Ten during Mr Lehrmann’s appeal in the Federal Court. (AAP:\u00a0Steven Saphore)<\/p>\n
In responding, Network Ten’s lawyer Dr Matthew Collins said that argument was “obviously rooted in historical misconceptions”, and that there was no coherent basis for distinguishing between the rape of a woman who is “cognitively impaired” and unable to resist, and one who is conscious.<\/p>\n
He said either scenario was a “horrid violation of bodily autonomy” and that effectively “all rape is violent”.<\/p>\n
Consent not a legal question: Lisa Wilkinson’s lawyer<\/p>\n
Ms Wilkinson’s lawyer Sue Chrysanthou also refuted Mr Lehrmann’s claim that he was denied procedural fairness, because Justice Lee’s finding \u2014 that Mr Lehrmann was reckless to whether Ms Higgins consented to sex \u2014 was not put to him during the case.<\/p>\n
She said her case did consider the scenario in which Ms Higgins did not verbally refuse consent \u2014 as she had claimed \u2014 but was incapable of consenting.<\/p>\n
“Not only did Mr Lehrmann know she was drunk, he participated in making her more drunk,” Ms Chrysanthou told the court.<\/p>\n
“A young man who knows that a woman is very drunk knows that she cannot consent. This is not a legal question, this is a question that is considered on the standards of the community.”<\/p>\n
‘Probably Australia’s most hated man’<\/p>\n
Another ground of appeal is that Mr Lehrmann was entitled to more damages than the $20,000 Justice Lee had flagged, if he had been successful in the original case.<\/p>\n
Ms Burrows said her client had “pretty much become the national joke”, arguing the level of damages was insufficient.<\/p>\n
“As I’ve previously submitted to the court, he’s probably Australia’s most hated man,” she said.<\/p>\n
Dr Collins disputed Ms Burrows’s claims that the manner of the rape was erroneously linked to the damages Mr Lehrmann should have received, if he had won.<\/p>\n
![\"Brittany](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/4448f1572ea494146ab1000d14971124\")
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Brittany Higgins was interviewed by Lisa Wilkinson on Network Ten’s program The Project. (AAP:\u00a0Mick Tsikas)<\/p>\n
He argued, whether or not Ms Higgins verbally refused consent, Mr Lehrmann still raped a woman he knew was “seriously intoxicated” and left her alone in the office of a federal minister.<\/p>\n
“That is not a man with any reputation in respect of sexual morality that would warrant compensation,” he said.<\/p>\n
Although Ms Higgins did not name her alleged rapist in the interview with The Project, Mr Lehrmann said he was identifiable, and therefore defamed.<\/p>\n
A criminal trial over the allegation collapsed in 2022 because of juror misconduct and the charge against Mr Lehrmann was later dropped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bruce Lehrmann’s bid to overturn a finding that he raped his former colleague Brittany Higgins has not started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2666,1110,61971,13394,2667,18231,70,43,55416,61973,61972,44,43016,41,39,42,40,13395],"class_list":["post-81869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-act","tag-appeal","tag-brittany-higgins","tag-bruce-lehrmann","tag-canberra","tag-defamation","tag-federal-court","tag-headlines","tag-lisa-wilkinson","tag-michael-lee","tag-network-ten","tag-news","tag-parliament-house","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-zali-burrows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}