In an,Wilkinson said her Logie acceptance speech for an interview with Brittany Higgins – a speech delivered days before she was scheduled to appear at a trial where she would allege she was sexually assaulted – was approved “at the highest levels of the network”. And on the awards night itself,Wilkinson said the Ten chief executive Beverley McGarvey had texted her at 11.07pm after the Logies:“Beautiful speech.”
Lisa Wilkinson has won in a legal battle against Network Ten,with the broadcaster ordered to pay some of the legal fees in the journalist’s defamation case against Bruce Lehrmann.
Wilkinson – who,for full disclosure,we remind readers,is married to our columnist Peter FitzSimons – is a journalist with four decades’ experience as an editor of various publications. She would be well versed in the established codes of practice surrounding the impact of journalism on court cases,not least because during her editing days,seeking and taking legal advice went with the job.
Justice Michael Lee said the risks of making the speech should have been obvious to a “cadet journalist”. But Wilkinson’s barrister told the court that her client was “not at any time a court reporter or a news reporter” and was reliant on legal advice given by Ten.
The Federal Court hearing is another court action stemming from the 2019 alleged rape of Liberal Party ministerial staffer Higgins by a fellow staffer Bruce Lehrmann in Parliament House. Lehrmann’s ACT Supreme Court criminal trial for alleged sexual assault was due to proceed on June 27,2022,but Wilkinson’s Logie speech eight days earlier led to the trial being delayed to avoid prejudicing the jury. Lehrmann’s trial was ultimately aborted in October 2022 due to juror misconduct,and the charge against him was later dropped owing to concerns about Higgins’ mental health. He has always maintained his innocence.
Wilkinson and Ten were at loggerheads over whether the network should pay for her to retain a separate legal team to defend her in Lehrmann’s lawsuit over her interview with Higgins aired onThe Project on February 15,2021,which he alleges accused him of sexual assault. Her legal costs have topped $2 million. In her affidavit, by Ten when she was removed from the program in November 2022,five months after her Logies speech. She said McGarvey told her agent there had been “too much heat” on Wilkinson since the speech.
Wilkinson said she did not wish to be represented by Ten’s legal team because,before being retained by the network,barrister Matt Collins had appeared on Seven’s Sunrise program and described Wilkinson’s acceptance speech as “ill advised”.
Tasha Smithies,Ten’s senior litigation counsel,told the court she had seen Wilkinson’s draft Logies speech praising Higgins’ courage before it was delivered and agreed she had advised the speech was legally “okay”. She also said Wilkinson had become “inextricably intertwined” with Higgins sinceThe Project broadcast:“The words I would use is Ms Wilkinson became part of the story”.
Wilkinson was clearly invested in and emotionally attached to Higgins. Therefore,you would assume she would want the best result and not do anything to jeopardise the trial outcome. Claims that Wilkinson was off on some one-woman campaign in defiance of sound legal advice or warnings from her employer to stay quiet do not stand up to scrutiny. But even though no legal advice warned against it,she should not have given the speech – at least in the form it was delivered.
Justice Lee said on Wednesday it was reasonable for Wilkinson to obtain separate lawyers,and he’d decide how much money she may recoup later. Her actions may inspire differing views,but for the Ten chief executive to send her chummy congratulatory text is the hallmark of a network where the buck stops nowhere,and publicity is more important than principle.
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