Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\nBurrows is a criminal defence lawyer and not an experienced barrister, a fact she pointed out to the bench when she said she was up against top silks Matt Collins KC, for Ten, and Sue Chrysanthou SC, for Wilkinson.<\/p>\n
Justice Wigney assured Burrows she was well qualified, but did instruct her on some of the rules of the court as she presented her submissions. He reminded her she didn\u2019t need to read out passages and should reference them instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry, What? What? What is the relevance of this if you don\u2019t mind me asking?\u201d Wigney said in response to Burrows raising the Logies speech given by Wilkinson when she won an award for the interview with Higgins.<\/p>\n
When Burrows characterised Lee\u2019s judgment as one which found a \u201cnon-violent rape\u201d had occurred, Colvin said: \u201cI\u2019m not sure he found a non-violent rape, and I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s a concept I understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burrows was repeatedly questioned by the justices about her four grounds of appeal.<\/p>\n
On the first of these grounds \u2013 that Lehrmann was denied procedural fairness and natural justice \u2013 Colvin said \u201cI don\u2019t understand the logic of this submission\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lehrmann\u2019s case is that he was denied procedural fairness because Lee\u2019s findings about the alleged rape differed from the one alleged by Ten and Wilkinson. Burrows said Lehrmann was not given a chance to respond to that version of the rape.<\/p>\n
Collins, for Ten, told the court Lehrmann\u2019s grounds of appeal are \u201cmisconceived\u201d and \u201ca distraction, in our respectful submission\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause, at the end of the day, this was a defamation case, not a rape case,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSexual intercourse with someone without consent, in circumstances where you know they\u2019re drunk, in our submission was satisfied as the ordinary definition of the way we say the ordinary person would interpret the word rape.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it really plausible in 2021 that a person in Mr Lehrmann\u2019s position did not at any time turn his mind to the question of consent, having regard to the way in which social mores towards sexual relations between the genders have evolved?\u201d<\/p>\n
Burrows declined to detail all her grounds of appeal, saying she would prefer to address them in reply. Wigney warned her that this was unconventional and she could not introduce anything new in reply.<\/p>\n
Collins said it was an \u201castonishing submission\u201d that Lehrmann\u2019s evidence might have been different if he had been given the chance to respond to questions about a \u201cnon-violent rape\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell that\u2019s, with respect, an astonishing submission, and it could only mean that had the pleading alleged a sexual assault in which consent was in question, he would have conceded to having had sexual intercourse with her, but argued that he thought he had her consent, or he did have her consent. That was never the way he ran his case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In submissions on the issue of qualified privilege Chrysanthou said Lee should not have criticised Wilkinson for believing Higgins when she first came to her and her producer Angus Llewellyn with her rape allegation.<\/p>\n
She said it was \u201cironic\u201d Lee was critical of Wilkinson\u2019s belief in Higgins when he found that her rape allegations had \u201ca ring of truth\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA judge of this court can watch a witness and say in a judgment to a very high standard, \u2018I believe you\u2019,\u201d Chrysanthou said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what is wrong with a journalist \u2014 with my client\u2019s experience in this issue \u2014 listening to Ms Higgins \u2026 and finding that she believed her as a starting point?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehrmann was charged with sexual intercourse without consent in 2021, and at his criminal trial in 2022 pleaded not guilty, denying that any sexual activity had occurred.<\/p>\n
After his criminal trial was aborted in December 2022, prosecutors dropped charges against Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Higgins, saying a retrial would pose an \u201cunacceptable risk\u201d to her health. Lehrmann has maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n
The hearing continues on Thursday at 10.15am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bruce Lehrmann can\u2019t afford a barrister to represent him in an appeal against his lost defamation case and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-81971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81971","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=81971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}