Bruce Lehrmann has been ordered to pay what will be a multimillion-dollar bill for Ten’s legal costs over his doomed defamation case against the network, as a judge declared there are “no real winners” in the case. The ex-Liberal staffer suffered a massive legal loss in April when the Federal Court found an allegation he raped Brittany Higgins in a Parliament House office in March 2019 was most likely true.
“He wrongly instructed his senior counsel to cross-examine a complainant of sexual assault, in two legal proceedings, including, relevantly for present purposes, this case, on a knowingly false premise,” he said. Lehrmann denies he sexually assaulted Higgins and was not convicted after a criminal trial was aborted. Justice Lee noted “there are no real winners” in the case.