- Judge Lee to speak at Women in Media event
- Brittany Higgins’ husband now demands answers
Brittany Higgins’ husband David Sharaz has demanded to know whether a Federal Court judge will mention Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case during a talk at a $495-a-head event.
Judge Michael Lee accepted an invitation to participate in a “candid conversation” with former ABC president Ita Buttrose at a national Women in Media conference on August 9.
According to the website, the session promises to offer “deep insights” into the intersection of media and law, “with a particular focus on issues of truth and trust.”
“Judge Michael Lee, known for his incisive handling of complex legal cases, and Ita Buttrose… will explore critical issues affecting both the media and judicial landscape,” an announcement said.
However, Sharaz seemed concerned that the focus of the event would be on Lehrmann’s high-profile defamation case in December, which Judge Lee presided over.
Sharaz was criticized in Judge Lee’s opinion.
Brittany Higgins is pictured with her husband David Sharaz in Sydney in November last year.
Judge Michael Lee is pictured during his sentencing in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial
According to The Australian, Mr Sharaz sent an angry message to the organisers, asking: “So you won’t talk about the Lehrmann case for which you have become famous and for which you are being booked?”
Women in Media told Mr. Sharaz that Judge Lee would discuss the intersection of media, law and society, and there was no expectation that he would speak specifically about the Lehrmann case.
In April, Judge Lee handed down his findings in Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
He discovered, on a balance of probabilities, that Lehrmann had raped his former colleague, Ms Higgins, in Parliament in 2019, much like she described during an interview with Wilkinson on The Project in 2021.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Lee found that Sharaz had reinforced “a political and conspiratorial theme” in Ms Higgins’ rape allegations.
“The articulation of the central aspects of this claim began shortly before Ms Higgins’ boyfriend, Mr Sharaz, made arrangements for Ms Higgins to tell her story,” the ruling said.
At the event, Judge Lee will chat with former ABC president Ita Buttrose (pictured).
In January 2020, Sharaz sent Wilkinson an email with the striking title ‘Me Too, Liberal Party, Project Pitch’ and immediately began telling him about a government conspiracy.
He wrote: ‘I have a sensitive story surrounding a sexual assault in Parliament; a woman who was pressured by the Liberal Party and a cabinet minister not to do so. She has asked me to be the one to tell the story this year.
He then sent her the timeline in an email titled “everything you need,” with another conspiracy claim.
“I’m sending this on Britt’s behalf, simply because, and this sounds paranoid, we just don’t know who might be watching her closely,” he wrote.
Wilkinson later referred to the situation as “an extraordinary cover-up” involving Ms Higgins’ former parliamentary bosses, Senators Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash.
Sharaz hand-picked Wilkinson as one of two journalists to whom Higgins would tell his story and became a conduit between them, even co-authoring a chronology of his assault to display in the press gallery.
Judge Lee did not accept Ms Higgins’ evidence that she wrote the document alone, partly because there were points where she was referred to in the third person.