Bruce Lehrmann failed to meet a court-ordered deadline for filing updated appeal grounds in his fight to overturn a damning defamation decision, the Federal Court has heard.
On Friday, Justice Wendy Abraham gave Lehrmann an extension until next Friday, September 13, to file any updated notice of appeal in his defamation battle with Network Ten and high-profile presenter Lisa Wilkinson.
He had missed the previous deadline of August 29.
Ten’s barrister, Tim Senior, said Lehrmann had been given “plenty of opportunities” to file the document and there had been “no explanation” for why he hadn’t.
Bruce Lehrmann outside the Federal Court in Sydney on April 15 after his defamation loss.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
In a landmark judgment in April, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee dismissed Lehrmann’s multimillion-dollar defamation suit against Ten and Wilkinson over an interview with Brittany Higgins aired on The Project in February 2021.
Lee found Ten and Wilkinson had proven on the balance of probabilities that the central allegation in the broadcast was true: Lehrmann had raped Higgins in March 2019 in the office of Liberal senator and then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, for whom the pair worked as advisers.
Lehrmann has maintained his innocence and is seeking to have that finding overturned.
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He is also seeking to delay the enforcement of a $2 million legal costs order made against him in Ten’s favour.
Ten, meanwhile, has asked the Federal Court to order Lehrmann to pay $200,000 in security to proceed with his appeal. This sum would cover some of the legal bills of the media parties in the event he lost his bid to overturn Lee’s decision and was ordered to pay his opponents’ costs of defending the appeal.
The court will hear Ten’s application for security for costs on October 14, as well as Lehrmann’s application for a stay of the enforcement of the $2 million costs order.