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Former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann has lost his appeal against a ruling that dismissed his defamation proceedings against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

Lehrmann accused the Network and the journalist of defamation, after a story on the program The Project in February 2021 alleged he had raped Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, while she was inebriated, in the office of then Defence Minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019.In April 2024, Justice Michael Lee found that on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann raped Higgins. Justice Lee dismissed the action against Network Ten and Wilkinson.

Lehrmann’s appeal against the ruling was based on four grounds. Federal Court Justices Michael Wigney, Craig Colvin and Wendy Jane Abraham addressed these grounds in their decision to dismiss the appeal.

The judges rejected Lehrmann’s argument that Justice Lee conducted the trial in a “procedurally unfair” manner towards Lehrmann. “[T]he fact that the primary judge did not accept the case to the effect that Mr Lehrmann engaged in forceful sexual intercourse, did not mean that there was some procedural unfairness to Mr Lehrmann,” said Justice Wigney. “He had the opportunity to answer the case and give an account as to what occurred in the Minister’s office. He gave an account that there was no sexual intercourse. It was an account that the primary judge rejected as involving the telling of deliberate and material lies. There is no challenge to the devastating findings as to Mr Lehrmann’s lack of credibility.”

Lehrmann argued Network Ten’s use of the word ‘rape’ conveyed to ordinary people “violent rape with express lack of consent”. This was also rejected in the appeal judgment, which found “[s]exual intercourse without consent by a person with that state of mind was rape according to the ordinary conception of that word.”

A third appeal ground concerned the burden of proof. Lehrmann submitted that Justice Lee “should have concluded that he was not able to make a finding one way or the other as to whether Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins”. Justice Wigney concluded “There was no demonstrated defect in his Honour’s approach which was considered and closely reasoned.”

All four appeal grounds were dismissed, and Lehrmann was ordered to pay the costs of both Network Ten and Wilkinson.