Bruce Lehrmann was an unofficial consultant on no fewer than two episodes of Channel Seven’s Spotlight program, while the TV network paid around $105,000 for his luxury Sydney rental home.
The television station paid Lehrmann’s rent for 12 months in Balgowlah, on the Northern Beaches, thanks to a lucrative deal with the network in return for exclusive interviews on its current affairs programme, which aired in June and August last year.
Former Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach testified in court last year that the network paid thousands of dollars for Lehrmann’s use of sex workers, Thai massages, cocaine and dinners at expensive restaurants — all in an attempt to lure him into an exclusivity deal.
Seven and the former Liberal Party staffer have strongly denied these claims.
However, Daily Mail Australia can reveal that Lehrmann’s involvement with the program went beyond his own interviews.
Lehrmann advised Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn on an episode called “Unmasking the Vaping Crisis,” which aired last June, based on his experience at British America Tobacco (BAT) in 2021.
“I was very pleased to be able to closely advise my friend Mark Llewellyn on the Spotlight production about the sinister and influential impact that big tobacco continues to have on some medical and government sectors,” Lehrmann told Daily Mail Australia.
He also reportedly provided advice on another episode about the transgender community in September, called ‘Breaking the Silence: The Reality of De-Transitioning’, but this was disputed by Mr Llewellyn.
Bruce Lehrmann is interviewed by Spotlight’s Liam Bartlett in 2023
Bruce Lehrmann was photographed outside his rental home in Balgowlah earlier this year with two mystery women
‘[Lehrmann] had absolutely nothing to do with it [the] trans [show]’, said Llewellyn, who described the claim as a ‘crazy conspiracy’.
Referring to the vaping incident, he said: “[Lehrmann] knew the doctor [featured in the episode] from his time at BAT and knew of his ties to the tobacco industry, which we have independently confirmed.’
Lehrmann offered his advice on vaping because he worked as a regulatory affairs manager at BAT after leaving Parliament House in 2019, where he lobbied the government on tobacco products.
His employment effectively ended in February 2021 when a journalist contacted the company asking about Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations.
He took personal leave of absence with full pay until June of that year, but BAT fired him, fearing he would no longer be able to work with government officials because of the rape allegations.
The non-disclosure agreement he signed before leaving BAT expired in mid-2023, when the Spotlight episode about vaping was being produced.
Lehrmann was involved in the production of that episode and alerted them to the existence of Dr. Colin Mendelsohn, a controversial doctor who advocates vapes as an aid to smoking cessation.
Bruce Lehrmann is pictured outside Parliament House in Canberra, during a promotion for his revealing interview in Spotlight
Lehrmann told Spotlight about Colin Mendelsohn, a doctor who advocates vaping as a smoking cessation aid. He is pictured during an interview on Spotlight
Dr Mendelsohn founded the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association, which receives funding from tobacco companies.
Lehrmann is also known to have provided material that helped the team formulate questions for the doctor.
There is no evidence that Lehrmann provided professional advice or that he was paid for his advice.
When asked for comment, Network Seven denied the claim that Lehrmann advised on the programme.
A spokesman said: ‘Bruce Lehrmann was at no time an advisor to Spotlight. To state otherwise is false and deliberately misleading.’
The network has been under fire since Lehrmann’s $105,000 lease deal came to light in federal court last year during his defamation lawsuit against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
He brought the civil lawsuit following a February 2021 episode of The Project, in which Ms Higgins alleged in an interview with Wilkinson that Lehrmann had raped her when they were colleagues in Parliament House in 2019.
Mark Llewellyn is pictured on the left, with Taylor Auerbach on the right, on a plane to see Lehrmann and entice him into an exclusive interview.
His two Spotlight episodes were his first revealing interviews after his rape case collapsed in late 2022. In these interviews, he spoke about the trials and hardships that come with being accused of rape on national television.
In April, however, Lehrmann lost the defamation lawsuit when a federal court judge ruled on the balance of probabilities that he had raped Ms. Higgins.
He appealed in May. The case has not yet been to court.
Following the sex and drug allegations that surfaced in Spotlight, Seven has been hit by a wave of boardroom unrest and financial cutbacks.
Those leaving the network included then director of news and current affairs Craig McPherson, managing director James Warburton, commercial director Bruce McWilliam and Mr Llewellyn.
In recent months, veteran journalist Robert Ovadia left the network after ABC Four Corners raised questions about the alleged toxic culture in Seven’s newsroom.
Ovadia allegedly took photos from a female producer’s personal Instagram page and created a “caricature” of them before sharing them with her, Daily Mail Australia revealed last week.
Meanwhile, Seven has thrown in the towel on major redundancies. Seven CEO Jeff Howard is expected to announce 150 redundancies across its television and print divisions and sales and marketing teams.
News anchor Sharyn Ghidella has reportedly been fired from the network after she was paid a much higher salary than her co-host Max Futcher.
