At the beginning of his Spotlight interview in June last year, Bruce Lehrmann sat in a Channel Seven studio and confidently said: “Beware the man who has nothing to lose.”
It was a sentence that came out wrong.
Lehrmann is now homeless, jobless and, in the eyes of the Federal Court, a rapist.
Namely, Judge Michael Lee determined in civil court that he was likely to have raped Brittany Higgins inside Linda Reynolds’ ministerial office in Parliament in the early hours of March 23, 2019.
He swore black and blue that he hadn’t done it, first in a police interrogation, then in a criminal trial, then on television, and then again on television, and finally in his own civil trial.
Meanwhile, Higgins insisted that he did. She told the court in painstaking detail and broke down as she recalled the physical pain she experienced on Senator Reynolds’ couch that night.
She presumably launched defamation proceedings against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson because she thought she would win, but now it appears she was almost given a lifeline when her rape trial collapsed in 2022 and charges against her were dropped.
The matter would never return to trial, and the only reason it did so was because Lehrmann himself took it back to court.
As Judge Lee astutely observed, “After escaping the lion’s den, Bruce Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat.”
Lehrmann appeared impassively outside the courthouse, expressionless, trying to get through the sea of television cameras.
It was discovered that Lehrmann encouraged her to drink his drinks, harassed her on the dance floor and took her back to Parliament because he was “bent” on having sex with her.
The civil standard of proof is much lower than the criminal standard, and Lehrmann has not been convicted of any crime, but make no mistake: the finding is damning and the reputation he fought so hard to save has been absolutely shattered.
Lehrmann appeared impassive-faced outside the courtroom, expressionless, trying to get through the sea of television cameras, perhaps to be able to process the situation away from prying eyes.
He also failed to react in court, not even when Judge Lee hammered home each point.
Instead of staring at the judge in disbelief like everyone else in the courtroom, which was buzzing with gasps and rapid keyboard tapping, he kept his head down and wrote studiously in his notebook.
That’s exactly what he did during his criminal trial in 2022. Instead of looking at witnesses, the judge or lawyers, he wrote notes.
And there was a lot to write in Judge Lee’s opinion. Today he called Lehrmann a liar, to the point that he would not accept anything the former employee said unless it was corroborated by documents or a credible witness.
Lehrmann had told the court that he found Ms. Higgins no more or less attractive than anyone else in the courtroom.
But Judge Lee found otherwise. He determined that Lehrmann found Mrs. Higgins very attractive.
Not only that, but he spent most of the night in the pub on March 22, 2019, talking to her; he didn’t ply her with drinks, but he did buy them. In fact, he bought her more drinks than he could produce records.
It was discovered that Lehrmann encouraged her to drink his drinks, dragged her on the dance floor and took her back to Parliament because he was “bent” on having sex with her.
Maybe they were going to drink whiskey together in the Defense Minister’s office, maybe not, but in any case, the judge determined that Ms Higgins had about 11 drinks and was probably too drunk to understand what was going on.
Judge Lee also found that Higgins was unlikely to return to Parliament House to sit alone on the minister’s window sill, and Lehrmann was unlikely to actually return for her keys, as she told the court.
The judge wondered why Lehrmann didn’t simply ask his then-girlfriend to let him in and didn’t accept her explanation that it was a “process to get into” his own unit.
He had missed six calls from his girlfriend that night, so his girlfriend was definitely awake.
Instead, Lehrmann decided to undertake the arduous task of entering Parliament after hours, drunk and with an intoxicated Mrs. Higgins.
Sue Chrysanthou SC hugs a jubilant Lisa Wilkinson as they left court on Tuesday
At the beginning of his Spotlight interview in June last year, Bruce Lehrmann sat in a Channel Seven studio and confidently said: “Beware the man who has nothing to lose.”
This process included doing everything possible to return to work in the early hours of the morning, lying to Parliament security, signing the necessary registration, obtaining a pass and going through a metal detector.
He then had to be escorted by a security guard to his office, get his office keys, book another Uber, return via a parliamentary exit and meet the carpool before finally returning home.
The judge wondered why Lehrmann did not tell Parliament security that he wanted to go inside to get his keys, instead of saying he was there to collect some documents.
Judge Lee noted that if he wanted to have sex with Ms Higgins he couldn’t take her home because he had a girlfriend he lived with.
He accepted Mrs Higgins’ evidence that she woke up to find Lehrmann having sex with her, that Mrs Higgins was too drunk to consent at the time and that Lehrmann may not have considered whether she consented or No.
He said: “I am satisfied that it is most likely that Mr Lehrmann’s state of mind was such that he was so focused on gratification that he was indifferent to Ms Higgins’ consent and therefore went ahead with sexual intercourse without to care if she consented.” .’
That sentence would have been the last thing Lehrmann thought he would hear on Monday.
We can probably assume, in light of today’s events, that his “beware of the man who has nothing to lose” statement in Spotlight last year was not accurate at the time; after all, he had never been labeled a rapist in court.
But it seems like he had a little more to lose, and he may have just lost it.