Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has flatly denied raping Brittany Higgins in his first TV interview, declaring it “simply didn’t happen.”
In a television special that included, for the first time, CCTV of the night in question, Mr Lehrmann described the “dark day” that the allegations were first aired on February 15, 2021.
“It is a metaphorical version of a nuclear bomb, or the world exploding before your eyes,’’ Mr Lehrmann said.
“Did you rape Brittany Higgins?” Mr Bartlett asked Mr Lehrmann at the beginning of the program.
“No, I didn’t. It simply didn’t happen,’’ Mr Lehrmann replied.
“Did you have consensual sex?’’ Mr Bartlett replied.
“No,’’ he replied.
The CCTV played showed Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins entering Parliament House at 1:47am before being escorted to the lift.
“What happened in the following 40 minutes is fiercely disputed,’’ Mr Bartlett said.
Mr Lehrmann was shown leaving Parliament House just after 2:30am.
‘Rubbish’: Lehrmann denies drunken kiss claim
Mr Bartlett claimed at the beginning of the interview that: “Everything’s on the table. There’s no question off limits.”
Some of those questions concerned the bombshell claims that Mr Lehrmann had a drunken kiss with Ms Higgins at a bar that was spotted by an eyewitness Lauren Gain.
Mr Lehrmann denied this ever happened. The program then played audio of Ms Gain’s police interview.
“I think I remember Bruce and Brittany being quite close. And I remember them kissing on the couch. And there was at that point, then - I don’t really remember much after that. I’ll be honest. Yeah, my memory is quite hazy because we did have a lot of alcohol to drink from the night,’’ she said.
Mr Bartlett confronted Mr Lehrmann over whether he kissed Ms Higgins: “She told police, and I quote, ‘You and Brittany Higgins were sitting very close, kissing and passionate.’”
“Rubbish,’’ Mr Lehrmann responded.
“But it’s one thing for you to tell the police you are close, it’s another thing for an eyewitness at the venue to say that you were being very close,’’ Mr Bartlett replied.
“It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? (If) you two were canoodling, snogging, you’d had a belly full of grog?”
Mr Lehrmann said this did not occur.
It’s the first time he has ever directly responded to the kissing claim, which was first raised during the opening of his defence barrister Steve Whybrow but then abandoned during the trial.
While Ms Gain was called as a witness, she was never asked about the claim during the trial.
Ms Higgins was asked about the eyewitness account during her own police interview but said she did not recall kissing Mr Lehrmann at the bar.
Tapes of Lisa Wilkinson
The television special also included snippets of a five-hour audio recording of Channel 10’s Lisa Wilkinson speaking to Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz in the lead up to the sit down interview and audio of Mr Lehrmann’s own police interview.
““Whether it’s white privilege, male domination, whether it’s, you know, criminal activity. I am from the western suburbs of Sydney. I have always been motivated by exactly the same thing, people who deserve to be heard, not being heard,’’ Ms Wilkinson says in the recording.
On Sunday night, The Australian newspaper published further extracts from the recording which it said included Ms Wilkinson suggesting Anthony Albanese was “a bit of a dead duck at the moment”.
“Well, he’s in a car crash, leave him alone,” Mr Sharaz reponds. “He got a lot of coverage out of that.”
Earlier, Ms Wilkinson tells Ms Higgins she does not want “to put words in your mouth” but does want her to discuss the culture of Parliament House.
“I have every confidence that you will answer that very eloquently, but it’s one you just need to really think about,” Ms Wilkinson says.
“I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but if you can enunciate the fact that this place is all about suppression of people’s natural sense of justice.”
Ms Higgins says in the February, 2021 recording that she was worried about the prospects of conviction.
“If he wants to go after me, like on a civil basis, I think, on the balance of probabilities, I think I could win. I think it’s, if the onus of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, I think that would be different. I don’t think I could win that,” Ms Higgins says.
In an extract of the recording that was played at the trial, Mr Sharaz said that if the story broke in a parliamentary sitting week “they have to answer questions at question time, it’s a mess for them”.
“I’ve got a friend in Labor, Katie Gallagher on the Labor side, who will probe and continue it going,’’ Mr Sharaz says.
In the recording Ms Wilkinson also criticises former deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop.
“The biggest frustration that I have with Julie is that she had so many opportunities to speak out against the culture,” Ms Wilkinson says. “And for one woman too, what was she, deputy to 13 different prime ministers over the course of her time in parliament.”
Mr Sharaz then interjects: “Always loyal too. Bridesmaid, never the bride.”
“The minute she was out of there (she said) ‘Oh it’s really sexist.’ I tried to get her on the record with that so many times when she could’ve actually affected change, and she wouldn’t,’’ Ms Wilkinson replies.
Conversation then turns to whether Ms Bishop might speak out or would back Michaelia Cash and Linda Reynolds.
“They‘re all Perth girls,” Ms Wilkinson said. However, Ms Higgins said “they were never friends”.
“I don‘t know why, but they never liked each other,” Ms Higgins says in the recording.
Mr Sharaz then added: “Julie doesn’t have any friends.”
‘Silent until now’
“It is the most controversial legal saga in recent history, one that has ferociously divided public opinion, rocked the foundations of the federal government in Canberra, destroyed careers and sullied reputations,” Seven said in a media release promoting the interview.
“Through it all, the man accused of a shocking sexual assault has remained silent. Until now.”
Ms Higgins publicly accused Mr Lehrmann of raping her inside the Parliament House office of then minister Linda Reynolds, in February, 2021.
The initial stories did not identify him by name. He was not publicly named until he was charged in August, 2021.
The allegations centred on what happened after Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins returned to work at around 2am after a night of drinking.
He has always insisted that she turned right towards the minister’s own office inside the suite and he went right to his own desk.
He later told police he didn’t see her again and left without saying goodbye to her after completing work at his desk.
A criminal trial in the ACT Supreme Court was first delayed following Lisa Wilkinson’s Logies speech and then derailed last October because of juror misconduct.
As a result, the jury never reached a verdict, but had appeared deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the days that preceded the trial’s collapse.
In December, the ACT prosecutor Shane Drumgold announced he would not proceed with a second trial on the basis of the threat to Ms Higgins’ mental health. The charge sex without consent was dropped.
Contacted last week, Mr Bartlett declined to comment on whether or not Mr Lehrmann was paid by Seven for the interview when contacted by news.com.au referring any questions to his employer.
However, executive producer Mark Llewellyn insisted the Seven Network had not paid Mr Lehrmann for the exclusive interview.
He also denied paying any other intermediary to organise the interview.
“No one was paid,‘’ Mr Llewellyn said.
“7 NEWS Spotlight made no payment to Bruce Lehrmann for the interview, however the program assisted with accommodation as part of the filming of the story.”
Last year, reports surfaced that Mr Lehrmann was in talks with Seven over a potential sit down interview which sources claimed could be worth up to $250,000.
Mr Lehrmann’s friend, former Liberal staffer and colourful political strategist John Macgowan, who attended the trial with him on most days with his legal team, was involved in the early negotiations with the Seven Network.
The Nine Network had indicated to Mr Lehrmann that while they are interested in an interview with the former Liberal staffer they are not prepared to pay for the interview.
It’s believed 60 Minutes approached Mr Lehrmann with a view to securing a sit down interview but that negotiations stalled.
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