Lisa Wilkinson finished her cross-examination on Friday afternoon by fighting to add a few more words into the formal transcript – despite fierce objections by her own lawyer.
She had been telling the Federal Court about her relationship with Brittany Higgins’ fiancé, David Sharaz, in January 2021, when she asked: ‘Can I just add a significant fact?’
Her own barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, quickly said: ‘No.’
‘No, thank you Your Honour,’ Ms Chrysanthou said.
Wilkinson said: ‘You will be happy with this.’
Legal counsel and members of the public started laughing.
Ms Chrysanthou said: ‘No.’
Justice Lee smiled and said: ‘Thank you.’
‘I had only ever met him…’ she started.
Justice Lee and Ms Chrysanthou erupted in a chorus of ‘no’.
‘No, no, no, no, no, no,’ they both interjected, as she fought to speak over them.
‘Ms…No, Ms Wilkinson,’ Justice Lee continued, putting his hand up.
‘…Once in my life,’ she finished.
‘Ms Wilkinson, thank you so much for your assistance and you’re excused,’ the judge said, smiling.
For Wilkinson, it appeared to be a bizarre attempt to wrestle back the power she lost purely by the fact that she was the one being asked the questions.
As someone who is used to being the interviewer and controlling the conversation, it would have been quite a shift.
Her back-and-forth with Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC was fraught with pauses and long-winded speeches.
‘Are you finished?’ he asked on Friday, after a lengthy monologue that failed to answer his question.
She seethed behind her glasses, but she didn’t lose her cool. Instead, she paused.
Whenever there was a question she didn’t like, or she knew could reflect negatively on her, she would pause and everyone would wait with bated breath to see what she said next.
‘Yes?’ she eventually replied, curtly, before the question was put to her again.
She would invariably emphasise certain words, as though she was still on television – like when, during her affirmation, she stressed the last parts of the familiar promise to tell the whole truth ‘and nothing but, the truth.’
Despite her ongoing performance, there was no doubt she truly believed what she was saying.
She believes Ms Higgins, she believes The Project researched the rape allegations properly before broadcast, and she thinks there may have been an attempted cover up.
Wilkinson’s voice lowered when she acknowledged The Project omitted important details about what happened in Parliament House the morning after Ms Higgins was allegedly raped.
In an uncut version of the episode, Wilkinson asked Ms Higgins if any security guards had asked if she was ‘okay’.
Ms Higgins replied: ‘No, no. I mean, besides one who called into the office in the morning, and said “Is everyone okay?” and that was it.’
In the final cut, the words ‘besides the one who called into the office in the morning’ were not included – falsely implying that absolutely no one went to the suite to check on her.
Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC said: ‘That’s very poor journalism, isn’t it?’
Wilkinson replied, audibly: ‘I’m disappointed to see that.’
He said: ‘Sorry, Ms Wilkinson, I didn’t quite catch that.’
She repeated, loudly: ‘I’m disappointed to see that, Mr Richardson.’
It was also clear from her evidence that she wasn’t CC’d into many communications with her producers and interviewees at Network Ten.
When asked if she was concerned there weren’t many male staffers working for Ms Reynolds at that time, which meant Mr Lehrmann could have been identified, she responded by saying that she believed ‘the appropriate checks were done’.
‘It was my understanding that the appropriate checks were being done and advice was being sought within Channel Ten on whether or not to use those facts.
‘I left those decisions to others to decide whether to keep those details.’
Wilkinson could be back on the witness stand in February during her civil suit against Network Ten after she racked up more than $700,000 in legal fees when she hired Ms Chrysanthou to represent her in the defamation hearing.
She could have used Ten’s lawyers, but she chose not to and is now insisting the network cover her legal bills.
Her salary with Network Ten is worth an estimated $1.7million.
The defamation hearing will resume at 10.15am on Monday.