The following are some of the comments / excerpts in response to Andrew L. Urban’s article in The Spectator Australia on May 1, 2024, ‘Was Lehrmann’s presumption of innocence left in the lions’ den?’ Reader comments were taken down and disabled on May 2, 2024. There were no comments supporting Justice Lee’s finding that on the balance of probabilities Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins – and therefore he was not defamed by Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
Brittany went out for the evening without wearing pants, her intended plans for the evening being best left for the reader to judge. She was later found naked on the couch with her dress folded neatly on the floor. As the dress was not ripped or torn at all we assume that she took the dress off before lying down naked on the couch, as opposed to Bruce removing it. She said that she’d been sitting on the window ledge waiting for Bruce, but didn’t recall as to how she came to be reposed naked on the couch.
The average bloke who had been carrying on with a girl during the evening, who then willingly accompanied him to a private location prior to her stripping naked and lying on a couch, would assume either express or implied consent. Contrarily, had she vomited then Bruce’s ardour may have dissipated prior to deciding to cut his losses and go home. He is a physically soft, gentle sort of bloke.
Justice Lee had said that only 2 people in the room knew what happened, but that number grew to 3 when he gave his rape judgement, which greatly troubles the commonsense layman given some of the nonsensical testimony listened to during the trial.
Brittany should have been charged with stealing Linda Reynolds ‘Carla Zampatti’ coat. The AFP never wanted to lay charges against Bruce in the first place, which was where the matter should have rested but for Labor’s desire to win an election on the premise that the liberals had a women’s problem.
The AFP failed a character test by not telling Drumgold/Labor to butt out of policing and stay off their patch. They also assumedly knew that Drumgold was a hopeless CDPP, so should have disregarded his insults and put him back in his box, thus avoiding being inveigled into all this nonsense, as they certainly had better things to do
The time and money that Bruce’s defamation proceedings cost may yet become funds well spent if the end result is the demise of a terrible government, accompanied by a bad bloodied nose that will teach Labor better than to try to utilise more future fake lawfare, which is terrible for good government and the public interest.
Brittany should have been sacked together with Bruce for being back in the parliamentary offices in the early hours without just cause. No-one made her accompany him or stopped her from taking their Uber ride home, and she certainly seemed keen to follow him, with or without pants.
Nick Bury
She did not go to a doctor to confirm intercourse or bruising or for mental help as advised ; she did not go to the police as advised; she washed the dress and then wore it again. There is no evidence of actual sexual contact. The Judge has made it all up. The legal system has fallen into disrepute as indicated by judges in NSW saying, when dismissing cases against men, trials should not proceed when there is no provable evidence and by the High Court saying similar in the Pell Case. Also see Bettina Arndt’s article “Men: locked up without trial”
Cementafriend
David Shiraz’s odd attempt at withdrawal from Linda Reynold’s defamation case in WA is yet another twist to the convoluted vortex that Higgins alone started. It began with her girly blaming of someone else (initially only one man but soon others as well) after being found naked and asleep in Minister Reynolds’ office.
One wonders whether Shiraz is finally discovering for himself how self-serving feminine manipulation has always worked. Is Shiraz’s weird tweet on “X” due to a slowly emerging awareness of his girlfriend’s frequent misuse for only her benefit (including monetary compensation) of her own childlike emotional dysregulation?
DPP Drumgold offered a “caring-for-Higgins” reason when he abandoned a second rape trial.
Justice Lee fell for the same feminine victimhood ploy when he dismissed Lehrmann’s presumption of innocence in a highly gendered, chivalrous and legally inconsistent opinion. In the end, Lee too revealed to the world how much he cares (feels sorry) for Ms. Higgins.
Against the established pattern so far, the savvy judge in WA has refused Higgin’s manipulative plea for postponement of Reynolds’ case.
And maybe, just maybe Mr. Shiraz is beginning to look after his interests rather than theirs. Or indeed hers!
Richard Millicer
Only Higgins and Lehrman know what occurred in the Minister’s office and no amount of speculation by Justice Lee or anybody else can conclusively decide what that was. Lee surprises in saying both Higgins and Lehrman are unreliable witnesses yet then says Higgins came across as a reliable witness of being raped and that her subsequent behaviour was consistent with a rape victim. Sorry, but as an ordinary ‘man in the street’, I am not convinced Lee was correct in his conclusions.
Davidovich
I have always believed that this was a case of a couple of young people pashing on during the evening, mutually agreeing to going somewhere cosy to continue more indepth pashing, and achieving whatever it was they were both after. The problem was BH being very drunk, passed out and was caught in the office by a security guard in a state of undress. When this was duly reported, she had to come up with a reason for her indiscretion, and the whole sordid tale took off from then.
Sally Thinker
…we get an extended he said she said with absolutely no evidence. How anyone can say ‘on the balance of probabilities there was rape’ is beyond any sensible consideration. We could say on the balance there was perhaps sex… but that’s all.
I don’t like either of them, but to toss reality away like this is stupid on the part of these people we are supposed to trust with the law.
Bloggs
Lehrmann took a HUGE RISK saying ‘no sex’ occurred when he did NOT KNOW if Higgins had provided DNA evidence to the police in the days preceding the rape allegation. This was a high-wire risk for Lehrmann.
Sue
ALU Comment: It was not a high-wire risk, if no sex took place as he claims ….
Andrew. I wonder if anyone picked up on my point in previous comments. 12 or more of your readers both in the case of Higgins’ Lee decision , and the 93 year old found guilty of murder by judge Mossop came up with not guilty verdicts. To my recollection only one woman out of 2 dozen contributors agreed with the judge in either case. So both accused would have won their cases in a jury trial. Simple maths. Now Harvey Weinstein’s conviction has been overturned because a bunch of women gave what was no more than unproven tendency evidence from behavior not directly connected to the charges. As you know I went through hell because of untrue unsubstantiated and more importantly untested accusation , which by the way , were so preposterous that no charges were laid or proposed. No doubt about it . The human factor in verdicts is unreliable. As above… who was right , the judges or the Jury . Your juries of 12 were in the main , even angry that both Judges could be so ignorant as to not administer an outcome which a jury , properly instructed would have come up with .
No doubt Andrew, everyone has an opinion, and rightfully so however some of those opinions appear to have a stretched imagination.
Many opinions exist though of a seemingly BH running to catch up with the security person and BL, along the corridor in parliament pose and this poses the question about “drunkenness” or a form of drunken behaviour.
BL apparently said to chief of staff when asked to provide more details about his version of being in the Senators suite that he “didn’t want to go there”.
Is there any reason not to believe that ‘drugs’ may have had an effect on BH and if such was consumed on top of the amount of alcohol apparently taken earlier that evening that this could account for her state of discombobulation when eventually disturbed by security.
No drug tests apparently after the discovery of BH at any time, either then or at any other time.
Am I to believe that even though alcohol is readily available in parliament that drugs is not!
Yes, only two people ‘really’ know what happened in the Senators suite and hopefully one day if someone does “want to go there” we may get some idea of why, of all places, both these people chose their workplace to indulge, in private, to have “a whiskey” or to conscientiously follow up on their work comitments!🤪
Andrew, you have constructed a case on the assumption that Lehrman was not proven guilty and therefore is innocent, as he self-proclaims. Justice Lee followed a different legal path, an inquisitorial one; he concludes that for the level of proof required in a civil case and on the evidence available, it is his view that Lehrman is very probably guilty. We don’t know what really happened but of the two scenarios let us look at the consequences. On the first conclusion, the hidden agenda is: ‘Girls, don’t go public if you have been sexually assaulted because if you do, you will be pilloried in some sections of the press, and your assailant will become the victim. Do you really want that to happen? Better just shut up.’ And if they do just shut up, that gives a green light to any future intending rapist.
My take on this is who is likely to be telling the truth: Higgins, with a basically unblemished record, or Lehrman, who has been caught out in serious lies and is facing two new rape charges. (I’ll not get into the political ramifications as they complicate the essentials).
There clearly needs to be a radical change in the way that sexual assault and rape claims are handled. Publicity is damaging to all parties as is the way rape charges are treated in court. The victim has to face her alleged rapist in court, which is likely to be highly confronting for her. Worse, the victim’s past sexual history is examined aggressively and minutely, whereas the past of the alleged rapist is specifically ruled out because he has to be tried on the present case only.
In short, under present circumstances, a rape victim may well see that it is in her best interests to stay quiet and let the perpetrator get away with it.
I’ll restrict my reply to just one aspect, to clarify your opening comment: Lehrmann was not convicted to the criminal standard and is therefore legally held to be innocent of the crime.
And I do agree that reform is urgently needed in the way sexual assault cases are handled.
“We don’t know what really happened”. John Biggs AM, I think you’re onto it. Justice Lee didn’t really know either. You say that Justice Lee made his decision based on “evidence”. If you re-read his 300+ page judgement you’ll see his conclusion is based on nothing more than mere unsupported assertion . That’s not the law. It’s nothing more than cheap guesswork and falls short of the standards of judicial ability we, the public ought rightly expect of our judiciary .Your comments are no doubt well meant John Biggs AM, but we can’t live our lives at the mercy of anyone’s uncorroborated , naked assertion and the sooner that Justices like Lee J properly recognise that the better.
It is inconceivable to me that one minute she, with a smile on her face, gleefully, with what appeared to be a sense of anticipation, skipped down the corridor then within minutes, was too drunk to give consent and passed out.
Nobody that drunk could be as coordinated as she was in the vision of her in the corridor that night.
exactly my assessment of Higgins ability to walk happily back for Lehman’s”hat”……