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Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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Speaker 1: It's Thursday August twenty twenty five. Too many kids with

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Speaker 1: autism are on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and it

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Speaker 1: needs a radical overhaul. That's the big news from the

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Speaker 1: Federal government, which says the ndis's growth must be brought

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Speaker 1: under control and eligibility standards need to change. Australia's peak

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Speaker 1: Jewish body has begged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nettan Yahoo

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Speaker 1: and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to stop slinging insults

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Speaker 1: at one another, saying they're putting the safety of Jews

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Speaker 1: at risk. That exclusive is live now at the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot Com dot Au. Bruce Lemmon is back in court,

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Speaker 1: this time trying to overturn a finding of rape. As

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Speaker 1: his lawyer claims he's Australia's most hated man today The

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Speaker 1: Reasons Lahman says he is not a violent rapist.

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Speaker 2: This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. If you need help,

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Speaker 2: call one eight hundred respect. Is there such a thing

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Speaker 2: as non violent rape? Doesn't matter if the victim is

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Speaker 2: bruised and battered or if she repeatedly says no. Is

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Speaker 2: there a real difference between an alleged rapist knowing their

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Speaker 2: target doesn't consent or being reckless as to whether they

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Speaker 2: consent or not. These are some of the big issues

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Speaker 2: being thrashed out before the full Bench of the Federal Court,

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Speaker 2: where former Liberal staffer Bruce Lhmon is appealing a judgment

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Speaker 2: that found he had, on the balance of probabilities, raped

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Speaker 2: a fellow staffer, Brittany Higgins inside Federal Parliament in twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 1: Laman has always denied wrongdoing.

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Speaker 3: He's pretty much become a national joke. He's Australia's most

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Speaker 3: hated man.

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Speaker 1: That's a voice actor reading the words of Zally Burrows,

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Speaker 1: the lawyer representing Bruce Lammon. She's a solicitor and she

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Speaker 1: started her appeal before the full Bench of the Federal

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Speaker 1: Court by apologizing that it was her and not a

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Speaker 1: senior barrister appearing before them. Burrow said Lemon couldn't afford

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Speaker 1: to engage his preferred silk Guy Reynolds sc just as

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Speaker 1: Michael Wigney, presiding alongside Justice Craig Colvin and Justice Wendy Abraham,

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Speaker 1: said he was sure Burrows would stand up admirably to

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Speaker 1: the opposing Silks, But as Burrows got started, it became

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Speaker 1: clear that judges were confused as to exactly what she

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Speaker 1: was arguing. One of Lemon's grounds of appeal is that

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Speaker 1: he was denied procedural fairness. The Project program on Network

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Speaker 1: ten aired an allegation Lehman had forcefully raped Higgins, pinning

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Speaker 1: her down while she repeated the word no. Justice Lee

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Speaker 1: found that, on the balance of probabilities, Lamon was reckless

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Speaker 1: as to whether the very drunk Higgins was consenting or not.

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Speaker 1: He found that Higgins's account of the encounter was not

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Speaker 1: entirely accurate, but that overall he believed she had been raped.

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Speaker 1: Burrows is arguing that Justice Lee couldn't find that Lehman

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Speaker 1: was reckless as to whether or not Higgins consented because

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Speaker 1: that question of recklessness wasn't properly put to Lemon. In

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Speaker 1: cross examination during the trial. When he was in a

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Speaker 1: witness box, Lehman simply denied there'd been any sex at all.

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Speaker 1: You'll hear a voice actor for the presiding Judge Michael

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Speaker 1: Wigney first, and then Justice Craig Colvin.

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Speaker 4: Just so I understand where this is going. The essence

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Speaker 4: of your argument is that his honor found that in

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Speaker 4: terms of your client state of mind, it was recklessness

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Speaker 4: as to consent as opposed to knowledge of absence of consent.

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Speaker 4: And you say that the case involving recklessness was not

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Speaker 4: part of the pleted case. Is that your argument in

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Speaker 4: a nutshell?

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Speaker 3: No, what we are saying here is the actual allegations

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Speaker 3: as to the sequence of events of how the rape occurred,

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Speaker 3: how it was pleaded as a violent rape. When mister sorry,

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Speaker 3: when his honor found that it was a nonviolent rape,

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Speaker 3: he found a completely different type. I'm not sure he

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Speaker 3: found a nonviolent rape, and I'm not sure that that's

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Speaker 3: a concept that I understand.

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Speaker 1: Justice Wigney kept trying to understand exactly what Burrows was saying.

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Speaker 4: Is your case that unless every single one of those

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Speaker 4: particulars was made out and the primary judge was satisfied

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Speaker 4: of them, that somehow the case went outside the pleadings.

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Speaker 3: Is that what you're saying, Yes, sir, Look, if there's

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Speaker 3: allegations of a very serious criminal nature being made against

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Speaker 3: my client, he's entitled to know exactly the full particular

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Speaker 3: the allegations. If it's an indictment, it's.

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Speaker 4: But that's all there. There's pages of particulars. The primary

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Speaker 4: judge wasn't satisfied that all of those particulars had been

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Speaker 4: made out, but nonetheless was satisfied that it was recklessness.

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Speaker 4: What's unfair about that?

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Speaker 3: Take away the recklessness as to whether she was consenting.

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Speaker 3: It was the manner and the way of the rape

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Speaker 3: was described.

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Speaker 4: What difference does it make?

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Speaker 3: He was taken surprise as too.

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Speaker 4: How was he taken by surprise?

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Speaker 3: Mister Limman didn't realize that the version of rape was

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Speaker 3: considered or contemplated until he was attending the judgment for delivery,

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Speaker 3: and he heard that version then, but throughout the trial

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Speaker 3: it was a totally different type of rape that was

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Speaker 3: put to him.

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Speaker 1: She gave examples of claims by ten that she said

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Speaker 1: Justice lead didn't accept, including that the sexual intercourse was forceful,

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Speaker 1: that Higgins cried out no, no, no on a loop,

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Speaker 1: that Higgins was pinned down on the sofa, and that

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Speaker 1: she was awoken by a sharp pa in the thigh.

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Speaker 4: It's a procedural fairness argument, is that right?

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Speaker 3: Yes, so that's correct.

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Speaker 1: The judge kept trying to get to the bottom of.

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Speaker 4: It, as I understand that your client's case at trial

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Speaker 4: was that there was no sexual intercourse whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: He pointed out that during the trial, when Lehman was

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Speaker 1: asked whether he sought Higgins's consent, his own barrister objected

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Speaker 1: to that question on the basis Lemon denied there'd been

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Speaker 1: any sex at all.

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Speaker 4: So what did you expect that he would have been

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Speaker 4: asked in those circumstances in cross examination, particularly in light

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Speaker 4: of that objection, If it was put.

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Speaker 3: To mister Limban the particular type of sexual assault and

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Speaker 3: the particular events of how he's found, perhaps mister Lhbman

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Speaker 3: may have called other witnesses, Perhaps he would have given

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Speaker 3: evidence to a different It's hard.

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Speaker 4: To His case was clear there was no sexual intercourse,

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Speaker 4: So how could he have been questioned about the particular

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Speaker 4: circumstances in which it curred. It could have been cross examined,

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Speaker 4: but he would have kept on saying there was no

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Speaker 4: sexual intercourse.

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Speaker 3: No, your honor, I can't make that admission concession. If

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Speaker 3: you put to someone allegations of a violent nature and

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Speaker 3: then another case where it's not so violent, you don't

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Speaker 3: know what the answer is going to be. In respect,

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Speaker 3: it comes down to it's really seriously unfair denial of natural.

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Speaker 1: Justice coming up what the other side says about all that.

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Speaker 1: Matthew Collins Casey, representing Network ten, said Borrow's submissions to

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Speaker 1: the court were astonishing. Colin said there was no challenge

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Speaker 1: to the judge's essential findings that sexual intercourse took place

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Speaker 1: and that Britney Higgins did not consent.

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Speaker 5: End of the day, this was a defamation case, not

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Speaker 5: a rape case. Mims Higgins was found not to have

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Speaker 5: consented to sexual intercourse, and it was accepted that mister

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Speaker 5: Lahman knew she was intoxicated. The ordinary person would consider

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Speaker 5: that to be a rape.

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Speaker 1: Collins ripped into the submission that there was a difference

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Speaker 1: between different types of rape depending on whether or not

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Speaker 1: there'd been violence or the victim had actively fought off

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Speaker 1: the attacker.

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Speaker 5: In our submission, it's obviously rooted in historical misconceptions. Both

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Speaker 5: involve an abhorrent violation of bodily autonomy, and both are

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Speaker 5: apt to cause grave trauma.

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Speaker 1: I mean justice, Wigney interrupted.

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Speaker 4: In other words, all rape is violent.

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Speaker 5: All rape is violent. This case involved a violent rape

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Speaker 5: when one puts oneself in the position of the victim,

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Speaker 5: which is just appalling. She is not fully aware of

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Speaker 5: her surroundings when the act begins. She then becomes aware

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Speaker 5: of the surroundings on his honour's findings, she can't get

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Speaker 5: the words out to scream or resist. The act continues

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Speaker 5: to climax, and the perpetrator then leaves without a word.

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Speaker 5: Those circumstances are awful, and what they show is that

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Speaker 5: the sting of the imputation resides in the fact of

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Speaker 5: the sexual intercourse without consent, not in any details associated

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Speaker 5: with it. And if mister Lehman's contention were to be accepted,

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Speaker 5: it would follow that although he raped miss Higgins in

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Speaker 5: appalling circumstances, he should be entitled to damages because when

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Speaker 5: she woke up mid rape, Miss Higgins didn't cry out no, no,

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Speaker 5: No on a loop.

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Speaker 1: Colin's slated Burrows suggestion that Laman would be entitled to

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Speaker 1: financial damages if the original find were overturned.

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Speaker 5: In our submission, a man who rapes a woman he

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Speaker 5: knows to be seriously intoxicated, who is not fully aware

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Speaker 5: of her surroundings at the time of the commencement of

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Speaker 5: the rape, who continues raping her when she becomes aware

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Speaker 5: of his surroundings, and that he is on top of

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Speaker 5: her and inside her, and who then leaves her in

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Speaker 5: the office of a Minister for the Crown in a

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Speaker 5: state of undress that is not a man with any

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Speaker 5: reputation in respect of sexual morality that would warrant compensation.

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Speaker 1: The fallout from this story caused a serious rift between

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Speaker 1: Network ten and its then biggest star, Lisa Wilkinson, who

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Speaker 1: presented the Bombshell interview where Higgins made her allegation of rape.

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Speaker 1: Wilkinson is represented by Sue Chrysantheusc. She said this question

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Speaker 1: of recklessness wasn't important to the original audience in this

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Speaker 1: day and a to an audience of the project in

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Speaker 1: February twenty twenty one, there is no difference in substance.

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Speaker 1: The court has read a letter that indicated Higgins and

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Speaker 1: her lawyers refused to cooperate at all with Wilkinson's defense

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Speaker 1: to Bruce Lammon's defamation claim because they didn't want to

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Speaker 1: work with Sue Chrisanthu. So in the original trial, Higgins

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Speaker 1: gave evidence for Ten, but not for Wilkinson, even though

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Speaker 1: they were all supposedly on the same side. Chris andthew

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Speaker 1: told the full bench on Wednesday, when Matt Collins was

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Speaker 1: cross examining Bruce Lahman, he was bound to stick to

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Speaker 1: the facts as Higgins had outlined them. That is, it

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Speaker 1: was a forceful rape. We at no point in the

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Speaker 1: trial bought into the full narrative given by Miss Higgins.

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Speaker 1: The appeal hearing continues next week. There'll be a judgment

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Speaker 1: in another matter that has spun off from Brittney Higgins's allegations,

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Speaker 1: the defamation claim brought by her ven boss, former Coalition

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Speaker 1: minister Linda Reynolds. Subscribers to The Australian we'll find out

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Speaker 1: that result first. Join us at the Australian dot com

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Speaker 1: dot au