Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday August twenty twenty five. Too many kids with
Speaker 1: autism are on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and it
Speaker 1: needs a radical overhaul. That's the big news from the
Speaker 1: Federal government, which says the ndis's growth must be brought
Speaker 1: under control and eligibility standards need to change. Australia's peak
Speaker 1: Jewish body has begged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nettan Yahoo
Speaker 1: and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to stop slinging insults
Speaker 1: at one another, saying they're putting the safety of Jews
Speaker 1: at risk. That exclusive is live now at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot Com dot Au. Bruce Lemmon is back in court,
Speaker 1: this time trying to overturn a finding of rape. As
Speaker 1: his lawyer claims he's Australia's most hated man today The
Speaker 1: Reasons Lahman says he is not a violent rapist.
Speaker 2: This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. If you need help,
Speaker 2: call one eight hundred respect. Is there such a thing
Speaker 2: as non violent rape? Doesn't matter if the victim is
Speaker 2: bruised and battered or if she repeatedly says no. Is
Speaker 2: there a real difference between an alleged rapist knowing their
Speaker 2: target doesn't consent or being reckless as to whether they
Speaker 2: consent or not. These are some of the big issues
Speaker 2: being thrashed out before the full Bench of the Federal Court,
Speaker 2: where former Liberal staffer Bruce Lhmon is appealing a judgment
Speaker 2: that found he had, on the balance of probabilities, raped
Speaker 2: a fellow staffer, Brittany Higgins inside Federal Parliament in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Laman has always denied wrongdoing.
Speaker 3: He's pretty much become a national joke. He's Australia's most
Speaker 3: hated man.
Speaker 1: That's a voice actor reading the words of Zally Burrows,
Speaker 1: the lawyer representing Bruce Lammon. She's a solicitor and she
Speaker 1: started her appeal before the full Bench of the Federal
Speaker 1: Court by apologizing that it was her and not a
Speaker 1: senior barrister appearing before them. Burrow said Lemon couldn't afford
Speaker 1: to engage his preferred silk Guy Reynolds sc just as
Speaker 1: Michael Wigney, presiding alongside Justice Craig Colvin and Justice Wendy Abraham,
Speaker 1: said he was sure Burrows would stand up admirably to
Speaker 1: the opposing Silks, But as Burrows got started, it became
Speaker 1: clear that judges were confused as to exactly what she
Speaker 1: was arguing. One of Lemon's grounds of appeal is that
Speaker 1: he was denied procedural fairness. The Project program on Network
Speaker 1: ten aired an allegation Lehman had forcefully raped Higgins, pinning
Speaker 1: her down while she repeated the word no. Justice Lee
Speaker 1: found that, on the balance of probabilities, Lamon was reckless
Speaker 1: as to whether the very drunk Higgins was consenting or not.
Speaker 1: He found that Higgins's account of the encounter was not
Speaker 1: entirely accurate, but that overall he believed she had been raped.
Speaker 1: Burrows is arguing that Justice Lee couldn't find that Lehman
Speaker 1: was reckless as to whether or not Higgins consented because
Speaker 1: that question of recklessness wasn't properly put to Lemon. In
Speaker 1: cross examination during the trial. When he was in a
Speaker 1: witness box, Lehman simply denied there'd been any sex at all.
Speaker 1: You'll hear a voice actor for the presiding Judge Michael
Speaker 1: Wigney first, and then Justice Craig Colvin.
Speaker 4: Just so I understand where this is going. The essence
Speaker 4: of your argument is that his honor found that in
Speaker 4: terms of your client state of mind, it was recklessness
Speaker 4: as to consent as opposed to knowledge of absence of consent.
Speaker 4: And you say that the case involving recklessness was not
Speaker 4: part of the pleted case. Is that your argument in
Speaker 4: a nutshell?
Speaker 3: No, what we are saying here is the actual allegations
Speaker 3: as to the sequence of events of how the rape occurred,
Speaker 3: how it was pleaded as a violent rape. When mister sorry,
Speaker 3: when his honor found that it was a nonviolent rape,
Speaker 3: he found a completely different type. I'm not sure he
Speaker 3: found a nonviolent rape, and I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 3: a concept that I understand.
Speaker 1: Justice Wigney kept trying to understand exactly what Burrows was saying.
Speaker 4: Is your case that unless every single one of those
Speaker 4: particulars was made out and the primary judge was satisfied
Speaker 4: of them, that somehow the case went outside the pleadings.
Speaker 3: Is that what you're saying, Yes, sir, Look, if there's
Speaker 3: allegations of a very serious criminal nature being made against
Speaker 3: my client, he's entitled to know exactly the full particular
Speaker 3: the allegations. If it's an indictment, it's.
Speaker 4: But that's all there. There's pages of particulars. The primary
Speaker 4: judge wasn't satisfied that all of those particulars had been
Speaker 4: made out, but nonetheless was satisfied that it was recklessness.
Speaker 4: What's unfair about that?
Speaker 3: Take away the recklessness as to whether she was consenting.
Speaker 3: It was the manner and the way of the rape
Speaker 3: was described.
Speaker 4: What difference does it make?
Speaker 3: He was taken surprise as too.
Speaker 4: How was he taken by surprise?
Speaker 3: Mister Limman didn't realize that the version of rape was
Speaker 3: considered or contemplated until he was attending the judgment for delivery,
Speaker 3: and he heard that version then, but throughout the trial
Speaker 3: it was a totally different type of rape that was
Speaker 3: put to him.
Speaker 1: She gave examples of claims by ten that she said
Speaker 1: Justice lead didn't accept, including that the sexual intercourse was forceful,
Speaker 1: that Higgins cried out no, no, no on a loop,
Speaker 1: that Higgins was pinned down on the sofa, and that
Speaker 1: she was awoken by a sharp pa in the thigh.
Speaker 4: It's a procedural fairness argument, is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes, so that's correct.
Speaker 1: The judge kept trying to get to the bottom of.
Speaker 4: It, as I understand that your client's case at trial
Speaker 4: was that there was no sexual intercourse whatsoever.
Speaker 1: He pointed out that during the trial, when Lehman was
Speaker 1: asked whether he sought Higgins's consent, his own barrister objected
Speaker 1: to that question on the basis Lemon denied there'd been
Speaker 1: any sex at all.
Speaker 4: So what did you expect that he would have been
Speaker 4: asked in those circumstances in cross examination, particularly in light
Speaker 4: of that objection, If it was put.
Speaker 3: To mister Limban the particular type of sexual assault and
Speaker 3: the particular events of how he's found, perhaps mister Lhbman
Speaker 3: may have called other witnesses, Perhaps he would have given
Speaker 3: evidence to a different It's hard.
Speaker 4: To His case was clear there was no sexual intercourse,
Speaker 4: So how could he have been questioned about the particular
Speaker 4: circumstances in which it curred. It could have been cross examined,
Speaker 4: but he would have kept on saying there was no
Speaker 4: sexual intercourse.
Speaker 3: No, your honor, I can't make that admission concession. If
Speaker 3: you put to someone allegations of a violent nature and
Speaker 3: then another case where it's not so violent, you don't
Speaker 3: know what the answer is going to be. In respect,
Speaker 3: it comes down to it's really seriously unfair denial of natural.
Speaker 1: Justice coming up what the other side says about all that.
Speaker 1: Matthew Collins Casey, representing Network ten, said Borrow's submissions to
Speaker 1: the court were astonishing. Colin said there was no challenge
Speaker 1: to the judge's essential findings that sexual intercourse took place
Speaker 1: and that Britney Higgins did not consent.
Speaker 5: End of the day, this was a defamation case, not
Speaker 5: a rape case. Mims Higgins was found not to have
Speaker 5: consented to sexual intercourse, and it was accepted that mister
Speaker 5: Lahman knew she was intoxicated. The ordinary person would consider
Speaker 5: that to be a rape.
Speaker 1: Collins ripped into the submission that there was a difference
Speaker 1: between different types of rape depending on whether or not
Speaker 1: there'd been violence or the victim had actively fought off
Speaker 1: the attacker.
Speaker 5: In our submission, it's obviously rooted in historical misconceptions. Both
Speaker 5: involve an abhorrent violation of bodily autonomy, and both are
Speaker 5: apt to cause grave trauma.
Speaker 1: I mean justice, Wigney interrupted.
Speaker 4: In other words, all rape is violent.
Speaker 5: All rape is violent. This case involved a violent rape
Speaker 5: when one puts oneself in the position of the victim,
Speaker 5: which is just appalling. She is not fully aware of
Speaker 5: her surroundings when the act begins. She then becomes aware
Speaker 5: of the surroundings on his honour's findings, she can't get
Speaker 5: the words out to scream or resist. The act continues
Speaker 5: to climax, and the perpetrator then leaves without a word.
Speaker 5: Those circumstances are awful, and what they show is that
Speaker 5: the sting of the imputation resides in the fact of
Speaker 5: the sexual intercourse without consent, not in any details associated
Speaker 5: with it. And if mister Lehman's contention were to be accepted,
Speaker 5: it would follow that although he raped miss Higgins in
Speaker 5: appalling circumstances, he should be entitled to damages because when
Speaker 5: she woke up mid rape, Miss Higgins didn't cry out no, no,
Speaker 5: No on a loop.
Speaker 1: Colin's slated Burrows suggestion that Laman would be entitled to
Speaker 1: financial damages if the original find were overturned.
Speaker 5: In our submission, a man who rapes a woman he
Speaker 5: knows to be seriously intoxicated, who is not fully aware
Speaker 5: of her surroundings at the time of the commencement of
Speaker 5: the rape, who continues raping her when she becomes aware
Speaker 5: of his surroundings, and that he is on top of
Speaker 5: her and inside her, and who then leaves her in
Speaker 5: the office of a Minister for the Crown in a
Speaker 5: state of undress that is not a man with any
Speaker 5: reputation in respect of sexual morality that would warrant compensation.
Speaker 1: The fallout from this story caused a serious rift between
Speaker 1: Network ten and its then biggest star, Lisa Wilkinson, who
Speaker 1: presented the Bombshell interview where Higgins made her allegation of rape.
Speaker 1: Wilkinson is represented by Sue Chrysantheusc. She said this question
Speaker 1: of recklessness wasn't important to the original audience in this
Speaker 1: day and a to an audience of the project in
Speaker 1: February twenty twenty one, there is no difference in substance.
Speaker 1: The court has read a letter that indicated Higgins and
Speaker 1: her lawyers refused to cooperate at all with Wilkinson's defense
Speaker 1: to Bruce Lammon's defamation claim because they didn't want to
Speaker 1: work with Sue Chrisanthu. So in the original trial, Higgins
Speaker 1: gave evidence for Ten, but not for Wilkinson, even though
Speaker 1: they were all supposedly on the same side. Chris andthew
Speaker 1: told the full bench on Wednesday, when Matt Collins was
Speaker 1: cross examining Bruce Lahman, he was bound to stick to
Speaker 1: the facts as Higgins had outlined them. That is, it
Speaker 1: was a forceful rape. We at no point in the
Speaker 1: trial bought into the full narrative given by Miss Higgins.
Speaker 1: The appeal hearing continues next week. There'll be a judgment
Speaker 1: in another matter that has spun off from Brittney Higgins's allegations,
Speaker 1: the defamation claim brought by her ven boss, former Coalition
Speaker 1: minister Linda Reynolds. Subscribers to The Australian we'll find out
Speaker 1: that result first. Join us at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot au