Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 2: This is seven Am. Bruce Lamon is arguably Australia's most
Speaker 2: hated man. That's according to his lawyer. She's been in
Speaker 2: court this week trying to make the case that Lamon
Speaker 2: shouldn't have to pay two million dollars to Channel ten
Speaker 2: until he's had the chance to appeal his failed defamation case.
Speaker 2: At the same time, Channel ten are arguing that Laman
Speaker 2: should have to front up two hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: order to have the right to appeal at all. Today,
Speaker 2: defamation lawyer at Good Company Law, Hannah Marshall on Bruce
Speaker 2: Lammon's chance of appeal and what that means for Britney Higgins.
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, October seventeen, So Hannah. This week Bruce us Lahmann,
Speaker 2: former political staffer, accused rapist, was described in court as
Speaker 2: Australia's most hated man. So tell me about his situation
Speaker 2: right now? Where does he find himself? I think that
Speaker 2: Bruce Lherman.
Speaker 3: Right now, he's been labeled a rapist, judged on the
Speaker 3: civil standard to have sexually assaulted Brittany Higgins in the
Speaker 3: defamation case that he brought. He's lost his job as
Speaker 3: a result of everything that's happened. He's im the cuneus.
Speaker 3: He's out of money, and his own barrister says that
Speaker 3: the only way he can make money now is by
Speaker 3: doing something silly like going on only fans and so
Speaker 3: he wants to appeal the decision. He wants to see
Speaker 3: if he can rectify some of the damage to his
Speaker 3: reputation and improve his financial prospects.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he wants to appeal that decision that was
Speaker 2: made earlier this year when this judge found that he
Speaker 2: was not defamed by Channel ten because on the balance
Speaker 2: of probabilities he did rate Britney Higgins. So how is
Speaker 2: that going for him?
Speaker 3: So the appeal has reached a stage now where each
Speaker 3: of the parties have brought a different application, the ultimate
Speaker 3: effect of which is to decide whether the fact that
Speaker 3: Lherman has run out of money should stop the appeal
Speaker 3: from going ahead. So on Lherman's side, he's brought an
Speaker 3: application asking the court to prevent Channel ten from enforcing
Speaker 3: the costs order already made in its favor in the
Speaker 3: main defamation case. They've been awarded two million dollars in
Speaker 3: costs and Lherman wants them to be stopped from trying
Speaker 3: to get that money or make him bankrupt until after
Speaker 3: the appeals determined. On the other side, Channel ten has
Speaker 3: brought an application for what's called security for costs. They
Speaker 3: want Lherman to have to pay two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 3: upfront to cover their legal costs if they win and
Speaker 3: defend the appeal. And so they say that the chances
Speaker 3: of him winning the appeal are weak at best. They
Speaker 3: say there's no public interest served by the appeal going ahead,
Speaker 3: and they say that it's common ground that Lehman won't
Speaker 3: be able to pay the costs of the appeal if
Speaker 3: they do win.
Speaker 1: So they say that for.
Speaker 3: All those reasons, he should have to put some money
Speaker 3: aside now for their protection before he can keep going.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So at this moment in time that it's
Speaker 2: not clear whether Leerman will even be allowed to appeal
Speaker 2: that decision unless he can pay, unless he can find
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: Dollars, that's right, And so you know he's in this
Speaker 3: situation where his reputation is in tatters. You know, you'd
Speaker 3: be hard pressed to find a person who has a
Speaker 3: worse reputation. At this point most of Australia probably sees
Speaker 3: him as a villain.
Speaker 1: And you know, with that in mind, you might.
Speaker 3: Frame the question before the court right now as does
Speaker 3: Lherman deserve the right to an appeal?
Speaker 1: But strictly that's not the question that the court has
Speaker 1: to answer.
Speaker 3: You know that there's an automatic right of appeal which
Speaker 3: follows a defamation decision, and once you take Lherman out
Speaker 3: of the equation, you know what the court's looking at
Speaker 3: is a slightly different question, and it is should anyone
Speaker 3: lose their appeal right against a really serious defamation decision
Speaker 3: because they've run out of money? And that's a question
Speaker 3: of principle which has broader ramifications for the justice system.
Speaker 1: So what is likely to happen next in this case? Hunnah.
Speaker 3: So if it goes ahead with the appeal, he's raised
Speaker 3: several grounds which will be brought before the court. The
Speaker 3: main argument coming out of those grounds is whether he
Speaker 3: can overturn the finding of the truth defense. Justice Michael
Speaker 3: Lee found that there was a substantial truth in the
Speaker 3: publications in which Britney Higgins made her disclosures, and that's
Speaker 3: a complete defense to the defamation action.
Speaker 4: Mister Luhrmann raped Miss Higgins. I hasten to stress this
Speaker 4: is a finding on the balance of probabilities. This finding
Speaker 4: should not be misconstrued or mischaracterized as a finding that
Speaker 4: I can exclude all recenta hypotheses consistent with innocence.
Speaker 3: Luhrman's trying to overturn that now, and to do so
Speaker 3: he has to overturn that underlying factual finding that to
Speaker 3: the civil.
Speaker 1: Standard, he raped Britney Higgins.
Speaker 3: To overturn a factual finding on an appeal is really
Speaker 3: difficult because of the question being put to the court
Speaker 3: is basically asking it to reassess the evidence which the
Speaker 3: appeal judges haven't heard firsthand.
Speaker 2: Okay, So even if he is able to go ahead
Speaker 2: with this appeal, it seems like it would be quite
Speaker 2: a difficult case that he would have to make.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: So the trial judge, Justice Lee, in reaching his decision
Speaker 3: on the truth's defense, had to make a really careful,
Speaker 3: detailed assessment of the evidence before him, including the testimony
Speaker 3: of Bruce Lehman and Britney Higgins. The judgment itself, it
Speaker 3: goes on for over three hundred pages.
Speaker 1: It's really deliberate and.
Speaker 3: Detailed in that analysis, I think having regard to the
Speaker 3: importance of the decisions which he has to make. You know,
Speaker 3: he characterized Lherman as a persistent, self interested liar and
Speaker 3: said his attachment.
Speaker 1: To the truth is a tenuous one.
Speaker 3: He also had issues with Britney higgins credibility, but for
Speaker 3: the most part, he connected those to the being consequences
Speaker 3: of the trauma that she suffered and did see a
Speaker 3: common thread in her evidence. So the appeal judges will
Speaker 3: generally defer to the trial judge's assessment. You know, they
Speaker 3: haven't had the benefit of observing the witnesses and seeing
Speaker 3: how they react to cross examination, seeing their body languages,
Speaker 3: and all those other things that happen in the courtroom
Speaker 3: as the case plays out.
Speaker 1: You know, unless there's a really obvious error.
Speaker 3: For those reasons, appeal judges generally won't overturn factual findings. So,
Speaker 3: you know, his position's pretty bad either way.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, how long can this case
Speaker 2: continue through the courts? And Bruce Lyman, he's one of
Speaker 2: several men who have been accused of assault or misconduct
Speaker 2: in the years since me Too, who has then gone
Speaker 2: on to sue a media company for defamation for their
Speaker 2: reporting of that. If we were to take a step
Speaker 2: back and have a look at the last few years,
Speaker 2: do you think that this is happening to the extent
Speaker 2: where you might call it a trend.
Speaker 3: For a long time, and I mean not eight to
Speaker 3: ten years, kind of hundreds of years, defamation cases have
Speaker 3: been used as a tool of powerful white men to
Speaker 3: silence criticism against them. And so the Me Too movement
Speaker 3: was in time which kind of was well suited to
Speaker 3: that particular narrative. There was this period where there were
Speaker 3: a ton of big wins for plaintiffs, and now we've
Speaker 3: seen things start to kind of shift back in the
Speaker 3: opposite direction, so there's been a real swing.
Speaker 2: There was a bombshell in Craig McLaughlin's defamation trial today,
Speaker 2: the actor dropping the case against nine newspapers and the ABC.
Speaker 3: The Craig McLoughlin case in the Me Too movement was
Speaker 3: a good example of that, where the case arose from
Speaker 3: allegations of sexual harassment during the course of the staging
Speaker 3: of the Rocky Horror.
Speaker 1: Picture Show production, and.
Speaker 3: He brought claims against the news publishers and also one
Speaker 3: of the women who had made the allegations.
Speaker 1: In the first place for defamation.
Speaker 3: He quite spectacularly dropped his case after I think ten
Speaker 3: days of hearing and a fairly inviscerrating cross examination by
Speaker 3: the defense barrister, you know, and that was hailed as
Speaker 3: a real victory for both victim survivors who were brave
Speaker 3: enough to share their stories and the press who reported them.
Speaker 2: It was Australia's one time Father of the Year who
Speaker 2: found himself falling from hero to zero amid headlines like this.
Speaker 1: Murder war criminal war hero to zero.
Speaker 3: The Ben Robert Smith case was probably another example more
Speaker 3: recently of a major victory for the press was a
Speaker 3: defamation case about a murder allegation and war crimes being
Speaker 3: committed in Afghanistan. The truth defense was the basis the
Speaker 3: success there, and so a bit like Lherman, it operated
Speaker 3: as a quasi criminal trial conducted to the civil standard.
Speaker 3: And you know, finally, although it was also hailed as
Speaker 3: a huge victory for the media, you can't discount the
Speaker 3: immense time and expense that was involved in defending the
Speaker 3: stories and the allegations.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's balance to all of it, I think.
Speaker 2: And it's coming up to four years I believe since
Speaker 2: Channel ten first broadcast its interview with Brittany Higgins. So
Speaker 2: is there a point at which there will be an
Speaker 2: end insight in terms of this being able to proceed
Speaker 2: through the courts any further.
Speaker 3: Look, any civil case like this can run the full
Speaker 3: course of the appeal framework in Australia. So if Lherman
Speaker 3: or Ten is unhappy with the finding on this appeal,
Speaker 3: assuming it does go ahead, they would then have to
Speaker 3: ask for leave to go to the High Court, and
Speaker 3: then if it's squanted, they get a full court appeal
Speaker 3: in the High Court. So there's still a number of steps,
Speaker 3: but there's no reason on their face, aside from this
Speaker 3: money question that those steps wouldn't be available to Lerman
Speaker 3: and Ten in this case.
Speaker 1: That could easily take another year or.
Speaker 3: Two depending on court timetables and things like that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: On the plus side for Brittany Higgins, she won't have
Speaker 3: to be in further the court won't be taking new evidence,
Speaker 3: but of course the publicity will remain intense and the
Speaker 3: court will still have to have regard to the testimony
Speaker 3: that she's already given, so that of itself will involve
Speaker 3: a degree of re traumatization.
Speaker 2: Yet to gain, And as this contest over the public
Speaker 2: version of events around this case has played out, the
Speaker 2: legal system has really been tested in many different ways
Speaker 2: as that has happened. What do you think has been
Speaker 2: revealed about the way the legal system functions?
Speaker 3: Though it's such a long and sad case, the way
Speaker 3: it's all played out and between the criminal proceedings this
Speaker 3: defamation case, the other defamation case, other criminal proceedings, it's
Speaker 3: brought to light some really important issues for the Australian
Speaker 3: judicial system, things like how does our criminal justice system
Speaker 3: treat rape victim survivors?
Speaker 1: Does consent me? And what's wrong with consent laws? What's
Speaker 1: the role of the.
Speaker 3: Press in publishing these kinds of disclosures and how do
Speaker 3: they do it responsibly? And the power and balance that's
Speaker 3: involved in defamation proceedings and the propensity of powerful white
Speaker 3: men to use them to silence their critics.
Speaker 2: Do you think that watching what's happened to Britney Higgins
Speaker 2: has influenced the way that people think about talking publicly
Speaker 2: about things that have happened to them, and perhaps even
Speaker 2: the advice that they might be given in terms of
Speaker 2: being able to outline a realistic scenario of what could
Speaker 2: happen if they do talk to the media.
Speaker 3: So I've had to advise a number of women about
Speaker 3: the legal risk in making these kinds of disclosures, and
Speaker 3: I have to tell them that to tell their story
Speaker 3: publicly comes with really substantial legal risk. They can be
Speaker 3: subject to prosecution themselves for defamation by their perfet trader.
Speaker 3: They can be asked to give evidence to support the
Speaker 3: news publishers truth defense.
Speaker 1: They can be subject to cross examination.
Speaker 3: And no matter how much I believe their story, you know,
Speaker 3: you have to be really frank that the judge might
Speaker 3: not prefer their version of events. You know, the evidence
Speaker 3: in these cases is often highly contested, and there's been
Speaker 3: a real patchwork of defamation decisions where the judges have
Speaker 3: made different findings about you know, who is to be believed.
Speaker 3: And so you can't give a person very much comfort
Speaker 3: that the legal system will support them or protect them.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's the opposite.
Speaker 2: Hannah, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Ruby.
Speaker 2: You can read Hannah Marshall's analysis the Laman case in
Speaker 2: a Saturday paper this weekend. Also in the news today.
Speaker 2: Combating the influence of so called alpha male influences will
Speaker 2: be the focus of an expanded education program in Victorian schools.
Speaker 2: The state Education Minister announced that their Respectful Relationships program
Speaker 2: will take into account the popularity of figures such as
Speaker 2: Andrew Tate, who promote misogyny and have a large following
Speaker 2: among teenage boys. The program, currently taught in two thousand
Speaker 2: government schools, will also be expanded to help students identify
Speaker 2: coercive control and fresh filings have revealed that Elon Musk
Speaker 2: has donated almost double the amount of money to Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's election bid than originally thought. Campaign finance documents made
Speaker 2: public show that Musk has given seventy five million US
Speaker 2: dollars to Trump by his American Pack. The pack is
Speaker 2: focused on swaying voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: where Musk recently appeared on stage at a rally with Trump.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.