Lisa Wilkinson snaps at Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister, Matthew Richardson SC, when he suggested she was more interested in viewers than investigating the truth in Brittany Higgins’ allegations.

Mr Richardson was suggesting to Wilkinson that she didn’t critically analyse Ms Higgins’ rape allegations.

He said: ‘I want to suggest to you that you were completely committed to supporting Ms Higgins.’

Wilkinson replied: ‘I agree.’

He continued: ‘You had no desire to check or scrutinise anything she said.’

‘You were entirely captured by your source,’ he asked.

Wilkinson didn’t understand his use of the word ‘captured’, so he rephrased.

‘You were committed to her version of events,’ he asked.

He then said: ‘You were thrilled by the riveting commercial story she told.’

Wilkinson paused for a moment.

She said, coldly and through gritted teeth: ‘Please don’t make me sound like a cheap tabloid journalist, Mr Richardson.’

Lisa Wilkinson asked about the moment Brittany Higgins claimed the government had wiped her phone.

Ms Higgins previously told the court she was taking screenshots of conversations that helped prove her rape allegations, before she tried to update the device and all her photos disappeared.

She suggested the government had software on her phone and that the device being wiped may not have been an accident.

That meant Ms Higgins didn’t have any messages or photos from the time she alleges she was raped.

In court on Thursday, Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC asked: ‘Did that cause you to have concerns about the reliability of Ms Higgins?’

Mr Richardson referenced a five-hour conversation she had with Angus Llewellyn, Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz in January 27, 2021.

During that conversation, she said to Ms Higgins: ‘Wiping the phone, it’s got alarm bells written all over it for me.’

Mr Richardson asked: ‘Can you explain, as best you can, what you meant when you said that?’

Wilkinson explained she was trying to get to the bottom of the situation, ‘so alarm bells were ringing for me’, she said.

‘I use “alarm bells” a lot.’

Mr Richardson asked: ‘Does that mean alarm bells in the sense you’re thinking “oh dear, the government may have been doing something to your phone Ms Higgins” or alarm bells in the sense of ”oh dear, what Ms Higgins is saying sounds really silly”?’

Wilkinson replied: ‘It meant we had to look more deeply into this issue.’

Lisa Wilkinson does not believe The Project implied Brittany Higgins’ bosses forced her to choose between her job and pursuing her rape allegation.

Nor does she believe Fiona Brown, Ms Higgins former chief of staff, was represented in a ‘monstrous’ way on the program.

Ms Higgins told Wilkinson that she did not believe she could keep her job and have police re-open the investigation into her alleged assault.

She criticised her bosses, Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown, saying she was told she could either help with the election campaign in 2019 or go home to the Gold Coast and lose her position at Parliament House.

Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC took Wilkinson to a section of her introduction to the episode of The Project, when she said: ‘A young woman forced to choose between her career and the pursuit of justice.’

Mr Richardson asked if the choice referred to was between her job and her rape complaint, imposed by Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown.

Wilkinson said the choice was between her job and her complaint, but denied that her bosses forced her to make that choice.

She said: ‘Can I add to some of my answers?’

He replied: ‘Ms Wilkinson, you can add whatever you like.’

She said: ‘There’s no mention of any person in that introduction.

‘That was pressure Ms Higgins was putting on herself.’

Lisa Wilkinson has gone through her transcript on The Project and identified each issue she believed Brittany Higgins faced in reporting her rape allegation.

Wilkinson was trying to justify one of the opening lines of her interview with Ms Higgins in February 2021, when she said ‘roadblocks to a police investigation’.

The first roadblock she identified was that Ms Higgins had entered Parliament House with a young man after hours, on March 23, 2019, and only one person was seen leaving – 45 minutes later.

‘One of the security guards goes and checks on Ms Higgins in the middle of the night to see what’s occurred,’ she said, sternly.

‘She goes in and sees a young woman passed out, Ms Higgins half-dressed or naked, lying on the couch, no doctor or ambulance is called.’

She said crucial evidence was lost within that time, but no one asked after her welfare.

Wilkinson leaned forward in her chair, leaning over the bench, and said: ‘I don’t know what sort of places you’ve worked in, Mr Richardson, but I find that a huge roadblock.’

Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC asked: ‘You identify the term ‘roadblocks to a police investigation’ to mean something that happened before the police investigation?’

She said: ‘Yes, because you have to call someone in – Ms Higgins had no one she could go to to report what happened.’

Wilkinson also said the fact that Parliament House has no human resources department was a roadblock and the first person Ms Higgins told about the assault was a political advisor.

Another roadblock she identified was the fact that there was trouble getting access to CCTV in Parliament House that night.

The court previously heard the footage was not released because there was no active police investigation.

Lisa Wilkinson has been on the witness stand for less than three hours and has already made a raft of admissions.

She has worked in media since 1978 but has never had professional training about the concept of contempt of court and the sub judice rule, and therefore may not have understood the impact her Logies speech could have had on Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial.

Wilkinson told the court she didn’t think viewers would listen to her speech and deduce that Ms Higgins’ rape allegations were true because she can’t read viewers’ minds.

She does not consider herself a tabloid journalist, despite running Dolly and Cleo magazines for 15 years – both of which featured paparazzi photos with various articles about celebrities.

She didn’t check the metadata of Brittany Higgins’ bruise photo because she didn’t know what ‘metadata’ was, nor did she probe her Network Ten producer properly because she was eventually led to believe the photo was not an issue anymore.

But one particularly startling statement that stood out was about how she read between the lines of Ms Higgins’ allegations, rather than scrutinising what the former staffer actually said.

Mr Lehrmann’s barrister pointed her to transcripts of conversations she had with Ms Higgins, where the former staffer was not able to prove she was mistreated by Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown.

At one stage, Ms Higgins said her former bosses Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown were supportive of her going to police about her rape allegations.

At another, she said they made her choose between pursuing her rape allegations and her job.

Wilkinson agreed those were the words used, but she maintained she didn’t believe there were inconsistencies with Ms Higgins’ story because her tone provided more context than the words she used.

Wilkinson went as far to take a swipe at Mr Lehrmann’s barrister, claiming she was more ‘attuned to reading between the lines’ than he was.

Wilkinson also appears to believe the government tried to cover up Ms Higgins’ alleged assault, rather than listening to what public servants told the network prior to broadcast.

Those public servants included Ms Brown, who maintained she supported Ms Higgins and offered to take her to see Australian Federal Police.

At one point, she told Justice Michael Lee: ‘It sounds like a cover-up to me.’

Despite the stunning revelations, Wilkinson’s tone was often relatively even – using long pauses to consider questions she wasn’t sure about.

The hearing resumes at 2.15pm.

Lisa Wilkinson says she relied on the subtext of what Brittany Higgins told her, rather than what she actually said.

Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC was asking her about conflicting statements Ms Higgins made during her conversations with Wilkinson.

At one stage, she said her former bosses Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown were supportive of her going to police about her rape allegations.

At another, she said they made her choose between pursuing her rape allegations and her job.

‘That’s a very serious allegation,’ he said.

‘Yes it is,’ she replied.

‘You had read the timeline document that Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown were supportive of her going to police at a meeting on Monday?’ he asked.

‘What she’s saying is contradictory, isn’t it?’ he asked.

Wilkinson told the court that she believed Ms Higgins had been trying to work out what her options were and trying to recall the words used.

She then said the way Ms Higgins preceived what was said differed due to the high-pressure environment of Parliament House ‘where so many people have different agendas.’

Mr Richardson said: ‘If you’re saying the words that were said are different to what Ms Higgins was relaying to you, wasn’t that a serious problem?’

He continued: ‘Didn’t that mean her account was unreliable?’

Mr Richardson asked: ‘You just said that what she said may not be accurate.’

Wilkinson paused, thoughtfully.

She said: ‘Maybe I’m just attuned to reading between the lines more than you are, Mr Richardson.’

Lisa Wilkinson explained to the Federal Court why a full message to Brittany Higgins from her chief of staff, Fiona Brown, wasn’t aired on The Project.

The message was sent in the days after she was allegedly raped in Parliament House and invited Ms Higgins to a meeting the following week.

The part of the message that was not aired on television was the next line, where Ms Brown asked Ms Higgins if she wanted to bring her father to the meeting for support.

Ms Higgins had told Wilkinson that Ms Brown was not supportive, describing her as a ‘terrifying individual’.

In court on Thursday, Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC suggested that full text was relevant to understanding how Ms Higgins was treated by Ms Brown.

When asked why the whole text wasn’t aired on TV, Wilkinson said: ‘The vagaries of primetime television remains that viewers have short attention spans.’

She said, in those situations, it was easier to show shorter messages.

Lisa Wilkinson told the court Linda Reynolds’ behaviour was ‘deplorable’ after Brittany Higgins dicslosed her alleged rape to her.

Ms Higgins had told Wilkinson during a five-hour conversation in January 2021 that she was not supported by her Parliament House bosses after she told them about her alleged rape

During that meeting, Wilkinson was referring to Senator Reynolds when she said: “I’m trying to work out who this f***ing woman is.’

‘I’d never heard of her,’ Ms Wilkinson says on the tape.

In court on Thursday, she said: ‘I apologise for my language.’

The bulk of Wilkinson’s gripe about Ms Reynolds appeared to stem from a tweet she posted in February 2019, after Julie Bishop quit politics.

It read: ‘Julie Bishop, Julia Banks, Kelly O’Dwyer, Ann Sudmalis…. Makes you wonder just how many (or few) women will be left in the LNP after the next election. Not that there were that many to begin with…’

Senator Reynolds replied in the comments: ‘So disappointed in your trite trivialisation of the significant contributions Julie Bishop has made over a brilliant 20 yr career – she deserves far better.’

The senator then said the Coalition had preselected ‘over 20 new & wonderfully diverse and strong female candidates’, and tagged Jacinta Price, who won a seat in the senate in 2022.

In court on Wednesday, Wilkinson said Senator Reynolds’ message was ‘cheap’.

Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC suggested to Wilkinson that she was looking for a reason to fire up about Ms Reynolds and that she already shared Ms Higgins’ negative opinions about her.

Wilkinson told the court her comments to Ms Higgins during that meeting were in response to the way Ms Higgins said she was treated by the senator, rather than a reflection of views she already held.

Specifically, Wilkinson was responding to the fact that Ms Higgins was called into a meeting with the senator and her chief of staff in the same room the alleged rape took place in.

Senator Reynolds has previously said she didn’t know Ms Higgins was allegedly assaulted in that room.

Wilkinson told the court that Senator Reynolds’ behaviour was ‘deplorable’.

In court on Wednesday, Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC suggested to Wilkinson that she was looking for a reason to fire up about Ms Reynolds.

Lisa Wilkinson raised questions about a photo of a bruise on Brittany Higgins’ leg, which she claimed was the result of her alleged rape.

Ms Higgins also said her phone was wiped in 2021, possibly by the government, and she lost all her photos.

Wilkinson had texted her producer expressing concerns about the photo, which she claimed was taken in 2019, asking how Ms Higgins could have had that photo after her phone died.

Mr Llewellyn said he wasn’t sure, but raising the question would weaken the story.

In court on Wednesday, Wilkinson said she had various phone conversations with her producer Angus Llewellyn and other team members about the photo.

‘I was a bit insistent we needed to do further investigation,’ she said.

Justice Michael Lee asked: ‘Did you escalate this?’

Wilkinson said she asked questions but couldn’t recall specific conversations.

‘Sometime before broadcast, I was satisfied this was not an issue,’ she told the court.

Lisa Wilkinson has been asked about a photo of a bruise on Brittany Higgins’ leg.

Ms Higgins told her the bruise was caused by Bruce Lehrmann’s knee digging into her leg during the alleged rape on March 23, 2019.

The court previously heard the photo aired on The Project was actually a screenshot Ms Higgins took at 8.45am on January 27, 2021.

There was no proof the photo had been taken within the days after the alleged rape, in 2019.

In court on Wednesday, Wilkinson said she never checked the date on the photo because she couldn’t see one.

‘Mr Richardson, I have to be honest with you, I am not tech-savvy at all. I didn’t know what metadata was at that point,’ she said.

Matthew Richardson SC, representing Mr Lehrmann, asked: ‘You knew there would be some kind of electronic record.’

Wilkinson said she was first shown the photo during a pre-interview chat and she was getting an understanding of what evidence would form the basis of Ten’s investigation into Ms Higgins’ allegations.

She was asked about the shape of the bruise and said she believed it was caused by the arm of the couch Ms Higgins alleged she was raped on.

‘Did you ever put your theory to her?’ Mr Richardson asked.

Wilkinson paused and thought, before she cocked her head and said: ‘No.’

The court then heard there was a small team working on Ms Higgins’ interview and all queries went through one producer, rather than several – as was the usual process – due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

She put all her questions and concerns to her producer, Angus Llewellyn.

Lisa Wilkinson’s Logies speech was played in court on Thursday morning.

During that speech, Wilkinson spoke about Brittany Higgins’ courage and bravery in going public with her rape allegations.

It casued Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial to be delayed by three months.

In court on Wednesday, she watched it intently.

Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC asked whether she believed the speech was the same as telling viewers that Ms Higgins’ allegations were correct.

‘As you stood there on the stage … Is there any part of you that thought, “this is not an especially good idea”?’

Wilkinson said she did not think that.

When asked if she took responsibility of the speech, she said: ‘I take responsibility for those words – I spoke them.’

Mr Richardson asked: ‘I want to suggest to you that you put your pride and your ego ahead of my client’s right to a fair trial when you gave that speech.’

Wilkinson replied: ‘I completely disagree.’

Mr Richardson said: ‘There were hundreds of thousands of people who believed Ms Higgins’ allegations.’

She replied: ‘Mr Richardson, if you can be in the minds of the entire nation, that’s a superpower I don’t possess.’

Lisa Wilkinson appeared tense when asked what ‘background’ meant to a journalist.

Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC asked: ‘Do you say the terms ‘background’ and ‘off the record’ mean the same thing to a journalist?’

She replied: ‘When they come from a political advisor, yes.’

He said: ‘In what circumstance can they mean the same?’

She paused, before replying with clarity: ‘As journalists, we choose what we are going to use.’

Mr Richardson said: ‘I’m just asking you what background means.’

Wilkinson replied: ‘It means it’s not to be attributed to the person who [supplied] the secret information.’

He then asked about her experience as a journalist, asking: ‘You’ve been working in journalism since 1978?’

Mr Richardson then asked whether she had undertaken any professional training in the legal concepts of contempt and sub judice in that time.

He asked: ‘Do you deny having undertaken training at Channel Ten or any previous roles?’

He asked: ‘Is that seriously your answer?’

She said: ‘Yes, that’s why I had to think about it.’

Journalists are typically trained to avoid committing contempt of court or breaching the sub judice rule (a form of contempt) as part of their daily work.

Contempt of court is any act which has the tendency to interfere with or undermine the authority, performance or dignity of the courts, or those involved in court proceedings.

Disobeying court orders or filming witnesses to try and intimidate them are just a couple of examples which might amount to contempt.

Sub judice (‘under judicial consideration’) contempt occurs when publication or comment through the media that relates to a current court case has the potential to interfere with the proper running of the proceedings.

Earlier in the week, a segment aired by Sky News Australia featured recordings of Brittany Higgins’ lawyer Leon Zwier having a discussion with her fiancé David Sharaz on Monday last week in the lobby bar of Sydney‘s Park Hyatt Hotel.

At that time, Ms Higgins was in the middle of cross-examination and therefore barred from speaking to her lawyers.

Breaching that rule could amount to contempt of court.

According to the Sky News article, tendered in court on Tuesday, Mr Zwier could be heard giving Mr Sharaz advice on how Ms Higgins should respond to questions about her compensation payment on the witness stand the following morning.

In court on Thursday, Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC said an expert was examining the audio.

‘By the end of the way, we hope we can tell your honour if there will be an application,’ he said.

Fiona Brown was Linda Reynolds’ chief of staff in 2019, when Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann worked as advisors in Parliament House.

Ms Brown gave evidence in Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial, but she ran out of the courtroom in tears.

Her legal counsel had asked whether she could be excused from giving evidence on medical grounds, citing recommendations from her doctors.

However, they said she wanted to contribute to the trial and give her evidence.

On Thursday morning, her lawyer asked whether the court’s livestream could be disabled.

Justice Michael Lee said he would take her medical reports into consideration.

The court heard Ms Brown is flying to Sydney.

Lisa Wilkinson arrived at the Federal Court on Thursday morning in a peach-coloured pants suit, ahead of her first day on the witness stand.

A Nine News reporter asked: ‘How does it feel to be the one being questioned?’

She replied: ‘Good morning.’

A diary entry tendered in the Federal Court case reveals Brittany Higgins told police that Bruce Lehrmann ‘got quite handsy’ on the night of the alleged rape.

The entry was written by Katie Thelning, an Australian Federal Police officer who interviewed Brittany Higgins about her rape allegations on April 1, 2019 – about a week after the alleged incident.

It was uploaded to the Federal Court’s website on Wednesday evening, along with a series of other exhibits tendered as evidence.

Ms Higgins told Ms Thelning everything she could recall from the evening of March 22, 2019.

She recalled drinking with Parliament House colleagues at The Dock hotel in Canberra earlier in the evening, before she went with Mr Lehrmann and two others to nightclub, 88mph.

Ms Higgins recalled dancing and feeling embarrassed she fell over.

According to Ms Thelning’s notes, Ms Higgins sat down again.

The entry read: ‘Bruce was sitting with me and got quite handsy – I didn’t really mind.’

‘I felt like I got super inebriated. I lost it on the stairs again.’

Her other two colleagues got in a taxi and she got in a taxi with Mr Lehrmann.

‘The next thing I remember was being at the bottom of Parliament House,’ the entry read.

Mr Lehrmann firmly denied touching and kissing Ms Higgins at the club when asked in court.

Lisa Wilkinson will be called to the witness stand at 10.15am on Thursday.

She will not aim to prove that Brittany Higgins was allegedly raped by Bruce Lehrmann – instead, she’ll try to prove that she did everything in her power to prepare a fair report for The Project broadcast of the allegations.

For Wilkinson, it could be a career-saving move.

Her TV career was paused in the wake of her disastrous Logies acceptance speech in 2022, which she won for her interview with Ms Higgins.

The speech led to Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial being delayed by three months and she faced heavy criticism.

On Thursday, she is expected to try and redeem herself.

She is expected to be asked about her negative views on Coalition minister Linda Reynolds, after she was recorded taking aim at the former defence industry minister in a five-hour recorded meeting with Ms Higgins – a few weeks before the show was broadcast.

‘I’ve so got Linda Reynolds in my sights now,’ she said.

Network Ten producer, Angus Llewellyn, was cross-examined by Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mr Llewellyn appeared to fumble on the witness stand while trying to explain why he accepted Ms Higgins’ version of events so readily.

Namely, why he didn’t notice that Ms Higgins airdropped him a screenshot of a photo of a bruise that was taken at 8.45am on January 27, 2021.

In her statutory declaration, she said the photo was caused by Mr Lehrmann’s knee during the alleged rape, and was taken just days after in April 2019.

He failed to ask Ms Higgins for the metadata, relied only on her word, and put the photo to air – telling viewers it was an injury as a result of the alleged rape.

Mr Llewellyn also couldn’t explain why he didn’t quiz Ms Higgins over various inconsistencies in her version of events.

One example was a claim that she was not supported by Linda Reynolds and her chief of staff Fiona Brown, and was forced to choose between her job and pursuing an official police complaint.

In her televised interview with Wilkinson, Ms Higgins said Senator Reynolds and Ms Brown were ‘nice’ but seemed to imply she had a feeling her job was on the line.

Mr Llewellyn told the court he didn’t discuss the finer details with Wilkinson.

Wilkinson hired Sue Chrysanthou SC to represent her rather than using Network Ten’s lawyers.

Bruce Lehrmann is suing Lisa Wilkinson and Network 10 in the Federal Court over her 2021 interview with Brittany Higgins where she alleged he raped her in Parliament House in 2019.

He was not named, but claims friends and former colleagues were able to identify him as the alleged rapist.

He has continually maintained his innocence.

Network Ten producer Angus Llewellyn finished his cross-examination on Wednesday.

Lisa Wilkinson will be called to the witness stand on Thursday morning.