SPEECH DELAYS HIGGINS TRIAL
WITH “gritted teeth” a judge has delayed the trial for the man accused of raping Brittany Higgins after TV presenter Lisa Wilkinson “completely obliterated” the line between allegation and guilt in her Logies acceptance speech.
Bruce Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting Ms Higgins inside Parliament House in 2019, and was due to stand trial in the ACT Supreme Court starting on Monday.
But ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum on Tuesday vacated the trial dates after Mr Lehrmann’s defence team requested a temporary stay in response to Wilkinson’s speech on Sunday.
Justice McCallum said she agreed to the delay, “regrettably and with gritted teeth”.
“Unfortunately ... the
recent publicity does, in my view, change the landscape,” she said.
Justice McCallum said the comments Wilkinson made when accepting the Logie for her work on Ms Higgins’ story, and a subsequent radio interview with Jonesy & Amanda on Monday, “completely obliterated” the line between an allegation and the finding of guilt.
“The implicit premise of the speech was to celebrate the truthfulness of the story she [Wilkinson] exposed,” she said.
Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer, Steve Whybrow, told the court the publicity following Wilkinson’s speech posed a real threat to the trial process.
“It’s untenable for a trial to be held in the case at this time,” Mr Whybrow said.
It was also revealed Wilkinson had been warned by the ACT’s Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold about the risk of speaking publicly before her Logies win.
Justice McCallum noted in previous hearings she had issued “stern warnings” to the media about its reporting, but her trust had been “misplaced”.
She did not set a new trial date, but said October would be an appropriate time for a “dissipation of prejudice”.