Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers claim proceedings must be put on hold to protect prospects of a fair trial after remarks that were ‘clearly a contempt of court’
Lawyers for the man accused of raping Brittany Higgins have asked to delay his trial citing “extraordinary” comments by Lisa Wilkinson endorsing Higgins’ credibility that they claim are “clearly a contempt of court”.
McCallum refused a bid for suppression orders to prevent further publications about the case – a decision she rued at Tuesday’s hearing as based on a “misplaced” trust in the press and the law of contempt to prevent further prejudice. “The implicit premise of the speech was to celebrate the truthfulness of the story she [Wilkinson] exposed.
McCallum noted in previous hearings she had issued “stern warnings” to the media about its reporting, but her trust had been “missplaced”. “You were right, and I was wrong.” Drumgold said that Wilkinson’s opinion of Higgins’ story “hadn’t changed”, and had been ventilated previously including at the March 2021 March for Justice.
Drumgold said that prosecutors, the defence and court all spoke “with one voice” that media coverage had been “completely undesirable”, but the test for the trial delay is whether jurors were exposed to the comments and whether prejudice could be remedied by directions to the jury.
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