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Speaker 1: Today's biggest news from The Australian. I'm Claire Harvey with

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Speaker 1: the Front's afternoon headlines. Bruce Lemon's legal bills just got

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Speaker 1: a whole lot bigger. He's lost an appeal against the

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Speaker 1: Federal Court finding that he raped Brittany Higgins and now

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Speaker 1: he has to pay more legal costs for his opponents

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Speaker 1: Network ten and Lisa Wilkinson. The Full Bench of the

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Speaker 1: Federal Court on Wednesday upheld the original decision by Justice

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Speaker 1: Michael Lee that, on the balance of probabilities, Lehman raped

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Speaker 1: Higgins in the parliamentary office of the now retired Senator

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Speaker 1: Linda Reynolds. Lehman sued Network ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson

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Speaker 1: for defamation over a twenty twenty one interview on The Project.

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Speaker 1: Justice Lee, in his original decision, found Ten and Wilkinson

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Speaker 1: had successfully established the truth of Higgins's claim, although he

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Speaker 1: was critical of their story on the project and also

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Speaker 1: found inconsistencies in Higgins's account. Lee also rejected higgins claim

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Speaker 1: aired on the Project that Scott Morrison's government, including Reynolds

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Speaker 1: into her chief of staff Fiona Brown, had covered up

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Speaker 1: the rape and pressured Higgins to keep quiet. In his appeal,

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Speaker 1: Lahman argued via his lawyer Zali Burrows, that Justice Lee

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Speaker 1: had erred in his original judgment and that he had

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Speaker 1: not been given the opportunity in court to properly address

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Speaker 1: the question of whether he knew Higgins was not consenting

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Speaker 1: to sex. Back in April, we used a voice actor

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Speaker 1: to recreate the words spoken in the appeal hearing by

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Speaker 1: Burrows representing Laman.

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Speaker 2: Mister Lehman is arguably probably Australia's most hated man. He's

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Speaker 2: a young man, he's got his whole life behind him

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Speaker 2: and he really does need his day in court to

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Speaker 2: basically defend this charge of being labeled a rapist, even

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Speaker 2: though it's on a civil standard. He's forever going to

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Speaker 2: be on the Internet and will be labeled a rapist

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Speaker 2: and people don't know the difference between a criminal standard

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Speaker 2: or civil state.

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Speaker 1: On Wednesday, Justice Michael Wigney read a summary of the

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Speaker 1: Court's reasons dismissing the appeal and ordering Lemon to pay

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Speaker 1: ten and Wilkinson's legal fees.

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Speaker 3: The fore Court has found that the way in which

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Speaker 3: the primary judge dealt with and determined the proceedings was

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Speaker 3: not procedurally unfair to mister Lehman. The facts, as found

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Speaker 3: by the Primate Judge fell within the terms of Network

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Speaker 3: ten and Miss Wilkinson's pleaded draft defense.

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Speaker 1: The barrister representing Network ten, Matthew Collins Casey, had earlier

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Speaker 1: told the Court Lehman's appeal grounds were hopeless and weak.

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Speaker 1: On Tuesday, Federal Court Justices Wigney, Craig Colvin, and Wendy

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Speaker 1: Abraham agreed.

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Speaker 3: The full Court has determined to dismiss mister Lehman's appeal

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Speaker 3: with costs. The Court has found that the primary judge

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Speaker 3: did not err in any of the ways alleged by

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Speaker 3: mister Lehmann in his grounds of appeal and his submissions

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Speaker 3: in support of them.

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Speaker 1: The appeal judges agreed with Justice Michael lead At Lahmann

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Speaker 1: knew Higgins was very drunk and not capable of can

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Speaker 1: senting to sex.

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Speaker 3: Mister Lehman was also well and truly aware that the

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Speaker 3: case against him included a claim that he had been

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Speaker 3: reckless as to Miss higgins consent.

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Speaker 1: The judgment says, and I quote, the only reasonable inference

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Speaker 1: is that at some point before sexual intercourse commenced, mister

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Speaker 1: Lemmon did turn his mind to whether miss Higgins consented

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Speaker 1: to sex and was aware that she was not consenting,

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Speaker 1: but proceeded Nonetheless, they also found an ordinary viewer of

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Speaker 1: the project interview would understand the meaning of rape within

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Speaker 1: the context of Lisa Wilkinson's interview with Brittany Higgins. In

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Speaker 1: their reasons, the judges wrote, quote, the primary judge was

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Speaker 1: correct to conclude that the ordinary person viewing the broadcast

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Speaker 1: would think that a man would have raped a woman

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Speaker 1: if he had sex with her without her consent, in

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Speaker 1: circumstances where he was so bent on his gratification and

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Speaker 1: indifferent to the rights of the woman that he ignored

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Speaker 1: or was indifferent to the required meant for her consent.

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Speaker 1: The judgment also endorses the findings made by Justice Lee

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Speaker 1: about both Lehman and Higgins. Lee said both of them

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Speaker 1: had made inconsistent statements and couldn't be accepted in their entirety,

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Speaker 1: but he believed Higgins's account of being raped.

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Speaker 3: This was not a case where there were two competing accounts,

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Speaker 3: each of which had been found to lack any credibility.

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Speaker 3: While the primary judge made some adverse findings concerning the

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Speaker 3: credibility of miss Higgins's account, his honor nevertheless accepted key

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Speaker 3: parts of her evidence about the sexual assault. In contrast,

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Speaker 3: the primary judge rejected the entirety of mister Lehman's acount

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Speaker 3: and found that he had deliberately lied in important respects.

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Speaker 1: You can check out that story right now at Theaustralian

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Speaker 1: dot com dou and come back to the front first

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Speaker 1: thing in the morning for a full breakdown of a

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Speaker 1: geopolitical feud that's blowing up right now, China versus Japan.