Community Ten lawyer Justin Quill is talking on ABC Radio Nationwide, after Bruce Lehrmann misplaced his multimillion-dollar defamation go well with in opposition to the community and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
Yesterday, Federal Courtroom Justice Michael Lee upheld Ten and Wilkinson’s reality defence to Lehrmann’s defamation declare over an interview with Higgins broadcast on The Mission on February 15, 2021.
Quill mentioned there was a way of reduction when the decide dominated in favour of the community.
He mentioned the decide’s ruling on what occurred on the night time “couldn’t have been higher”.
Justin Quill, certainly one of Community Ten’s solicitors, addresses the media exterior the Federal Courtroom in Sydney.Credit score: Wolter Peeters
“I’ve received to say, his honour’s evaluation on the information and what occurred on that night time … couldn’t have been higher,” Quill informed ABC Radio.
He was requested in regards to the criticism the decide made for intertwining the rape allegation and the narrative of a cover-up.
That was within the context of the certified privilege defence, he mentioned, which not often ended with a win for defendants.
“That’s extra an operation of the way in which through which the regulation works, you will have the judges and barristers choosing aside what journalists did, and didn’t do many months, typically years, after the occasion after which making use of this take a look at of reasonableness to the conduct by journalists,” Quill mentioned.
He mentioned it doesn’t essentially imply the journalism wasn’t affordable.
“In the event you simply boil it all the way down to its absolute, easiest phrases, it couldn’t be unreasonable to publish one thing that was true, the central allegation,” Quill mentioned.
Lee was glad Ten and Wilkinson had proved to the civil normal – on the stability of possibilities – that Lehrmann raped Higgins within the Parliament Home workplace of their then-boss, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, within the early hours of March 23, 2019.
That is decrease than the felony normal of past affordable doubt. Lee’s determination doesn’t quantity to a discovering of felony guilt.
