Journalist Lisa Wilkinson has charged that Network Ten neglected to disclose that senior management and legal counsel had approved of her contentious Logies speech regarding Brittany Higgins’ purported rape.
Following Wilkinson’s 2022 speech, which caused the rape trial of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann to be postponed, Wilkinson was roundly criticised in the media.
Wilkinson acknowledged that her employer’s remarks at the time had been “very legally considered” during her testimony in a defamation trial on Tuesday in a Federal Court.
She said she had been “begging them” to explain their part in the speech, but that was still the case.
“They had asked me to make that speech, they had been involved in legalling that speech right up until … the afternoon of the Logies,” she continued.
Wilkinson claimed that after the speech, she was “trashed” by the media and blamed for sabotaging Lehrmann’s 2019 trial in which he was charged with raping Higgins in Parliament House.
In order to preserve Lehrmann’s right to a fair trial, the ACT Supreme Court proceedings were postponed as a result of the speech.
“The media believed that I had gotten up on that stage and given a speech pretty much off the top of my head,” Wilkinson stated.
“That was entirely false. I was the only one who was being held accountable for making that speech.”
In response to a February 2021 report on The Project that featured Higgins’ rape allegations, Lehrmann is suing Ten and Wilkinson for defamation.
Having retained her own legal counsel, Wilkinson has filed a cross-claim against the broadcaster in an attempt to recover legal expenses.
During Tuesday’s cross-examination, Ten attorney Robert Dick SC questioned the journalist, implying that she hired a different attorney in order to safeguard or improve her public image.
“It was becoming very apparent to me that Channel 10 … (was) conflicted when it came to representing me in these defamation proceedings,” Wilkinson responded.
She said that Ten had not told her about the lawsuit they were facing and that she had to learn about it from the media.
“It was incredibly disappointing,” Wilkinson remarked.
Prior to the trial, the court heard from YouTuber Glenn Logan, who asserts to “debunk” feminist problems, acknowledging that he published a video of the trial even though it was prohibited.
However, Patrick Schmidt, Logan’s attorney, testified during the hearing that his client was not aware of the injunction.
“While his actions were not intentional, they were reckless,” he stated.
Logan was previously told by Justice Michael Lee to come explain his actions before it was decided whether to file a contempt of court charge against him.
However, he did not show up on Tuesday as needed, as Schmidt reported that his client was running late due to a flight from Melbourne.
Logan’s non-appearance was deemed “unacceptable” by Justice Lee, who also threatened to send the case to court officials so that contempt proceedings might begin.
Logan informed his audience in a video aired for the court that his “Feminism Debunked” channel had its content banned by YouTube because it was “run by feminists.”
He advised viewers to view the videos on other platforms.
Logan was described as “of low intelligence” in court and had a number of mental health diagnoses.
The 22-day defamation trial that Lehrmann filed was broadcast live on the Federal Court YouTube page, where hundreds of people occasionally viewed the proceedings.
Lehrmann has consistently denied having intercourse with Higgins, and erroneous jury selections caused his criminal trial to be halted.
