Five guileful hours: A real project: how Lisa and Brittany war-gamed which ‘friendlies’ to fire up.
I have every confidence that you will answer that very eloquently, but it’s one you just need to really think about. 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.”
– Lisa Wilkinson, putting words into the mouth of Brittany Higgins
Can we have our $3 million back?
First time I’ve seen Daily Mail comments open for a Higgins story.
From Russia with Love. One of my favourite Bond movies, and Rosa Clebb (Lotte Lenya) was a big part of it. Tatiana Rovonova (Daniela Bianchi) was extremely beautiful as were the gipsy girls.
It goes from bad to worse to vomit inducing. All roads lead to Sharaz.
Democracy is completely fake and only exists for midwits to believe they have control. This is the real way things work.
The self-regarding Wilkinson is really quite grubby.
And sly.
Higgins is about to be cut loose, served her purpose.
The media, in so far as they ever mention her again, will roll on and pretend it’s surprised by the truth it knew and suppressed all along.
It is opined by eminent (in their own mind anyway) judges, former and current, and barristers that our adversarial method of finding the facts on a trial is the best available means to do so. Day by day we learn from the post-Lehrmann trial how wrong is this opinion. We know now that Fiona Brown’ was denied by the DPP the opportunity to get back in the witness box to contradict Higgins on the critical question whether she and Reynolds refused to support Higgins. Higgins claim was the bedrock of the very successful Gallagher led campaign against Morrison. I hope Sofronoff sees its significance.
Now we learn from Parliament House video that Higgins was not, as she told the police 10/10 drunk when she entered the premises. How was it that the jury was not shown the video? Did neither side see any benefit in doing so? Or did neither side know about?
Just two quick reflections. One, even court records can be, in fact often are, very unreliable as primary source material for historians. Two, that the European system whereby a judicial officer (who is trained for this purpose) controls the investigation is superior to or common law methods. Or, at least, a blend of both systems is. Oh, and the jury trial in a multi-ethnic society works badly.
Our system of jurisprudence relies on the homily that the vast majority of people that make up the judicial system including prosecutors, judges, barristers, solicitors and the jury will be basically honest people. What happens when the people that make up this system think that honesty can be discarded for a higher cause? This case is one of many across the world where we are seeing this issue play out. In this case the higher cause appears to have been the perception that parliament is sexist. The problem for these people is that building a narrative on a pack of lies means any old idea can become the truth if you just want it to be badly enough.
This higher (leftist) cause idea results in articles like this from the ABC that deliberately gloss over the crux of the issue (that Drumgold essentially triggered the Sofronoff investigation then redacted his claims against Police, how many other times has he bullshitted to help a case?) and buried the only meaningful observation at the end.
Entirely off topic for a moment – keep up the excellent work C.L.
You have one of the best blogs ever.
At least they didn’t claim Mr Lehrmann once peed in Obama’s hotel bed. Maybe they will reserve that evidence for the appeals. I know someone who could help them do up a dossier if they need one to flesh out the allegation. He’s not too expensive.
What OSC said
The early commentary seemed to focus on “cover-up” in the PM’s office. P Wong and K Gallagher questioning L Reynolds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM1MLsrirQ8&ab_channel=GuardianAustralia and there is a similar one of them questioning Philip Gaetjens, then Secretary of PMO. M Dreyfus has a speech re Higgins at March4Justice (15 March 2021) on his website which includes elements of her speech/the prosecution case, and a discussion on the Rule of Law: https://www.markdreyfus.com/media/speeches/adjournment-speech-march4justice-mark-dreyfus-qc-mp/
what Old School Conservative says…
That Dreyfus speech is a disgrace. A man who is now the highest officer of the law in the country co-opted the concept of rule of law to pre-empt the outcome of a case in order to sledge a political opponent.
How can anyone now feel confident that the rule of law means anything if their case defies the ruling party’s ideological orthodoxy? Where are the media panning this?
Dreyfus is a disgrace.
And Dreyfus is now picking High Court judges: Victoria here we come.
Note also that Sharaz’s good friend Senator Gallagher, as minister for finance, later approved a multi-million dollar payout for Higgins with a speed – and a lack of due process – that seems to have broken all records.
If Dreyfus’s hand-picked anti-corruption commission is anything more than a partisan political sham (but we all know it isn’t), that payout should be its first inquiry.
My ouija board supplies this unreported exchange from that meeting:
Wilkinson: whaddya reckon the chances are of Morrison giving a pre-emptive apology to Britt in Parliament?
(general laughter)
Higgins: Not even he could be that dumb.
Yes he could, his political savvy is that bad.
And so smug they let the entire exchange be recorded.
Who leaked the recording, though?
Regarding Morrison’s F’wittery on this matter: Kinda hard to see how any PM (or Premier) will ever be on the level again….
In the past eighteen months we’ve seen two examples of pollies getting top jobs here and overseas: starting immediately strong….but then being pulled into line by “someone” or “someones”. Perrotet in NSW; IMMEDIATELY ended the mask and vax passport mandates (control by WHO / WEF-owned health bureaucrats) and then about 5 days later was over-ridden. and he re-instated the previous orders….and that sheila in Britain who was PM for a couple of weeks before FLEEING,
My mate reckons the way they do it in the US is the CIA shows incoming Presidents the tapes of how JFK REALLY died, but has anyone here got yupdates on the rest of them?
BTW: Who’s got the films of Harold Holt’s and Dan Andrews’ unfortunate accidents d’ya reckon?
Re the leak, I don’t think anyone actually likes Higgins, she reeks of an mid-tier kind of uncool girl who got the chance to hang around with the cool girls for a week because she had some novelty that they were interested in.
They’re sick of her now and if she’s lucky they’ll just run her off, if she’s unlucky…mean girls are going to mean girl.
If anyone has the latter, he or she is in excellent position with regard to – ahem – “leverage” over him.
from this news.com.au story
I knew years ago there was video of those two idiots entering parliament on the morning in question, as it was noted that Hoggins was unable to put her shoes back on after having taken them off to get through the security screen.
Funny that the video should mysteriously resurface again now, well after that stinking farce of a trial was aborted.
Also interesting is the revelation that the jury was 11-1 to acquit, something Drumkopf seems to have been desperate to ensure didn’t become public knowledge.
Funny, someone here, based on no evidence at all, keeps maintaining that the jury was 11-1 in favour of guilty.
A clarification, Rabz. No one other than the jurors is supposed to know waht goes on in the jury room, unless one of them complains to or raises an issue with the judge; and in that case, it remains confidential between the jurors and the judge.
So if Drumgold really knows what went on in the jury room, there has been an illegal disclosure. And if he doesn’t really know, he is – yet again – making things up, like the theory about a conservative political conspiracy to interfere in the trial which he put before the jury without evidence and had to retract under Sofronoff’s questioning.
Add to that the admission that he twice (unintentionally, of course!) misled the judge during the trial, and the testimony from the police that he told them to charge Lehrmann before he had even looked at the brief of evidence, and you have a pretty damning indictment.
Drumgold’s claim was that the jury was 11-1 to convict and that the holdout was the offending juror who brought the research paper into the jury room. Either an illegal leak or a baseless piece of speculation based on feelz/the Vibe.
There should be a Royal Commission into the whole stinking affair.
But there won’t, at least not while Labor is in government – too many backs to protect.
Now it’s become clear that Sharaz’s special friend was the mean girl in chief, the first order of business for sleazy’s new icac should be to examine if there was political interference that led to a trial commencing against the recommendation of the afp.
Mike Carlton is upset because his comrades Lisa and Peter Fitzsimian have the scrutiny turned on them:
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/06/mike-carlton-watched-channel-7s-bruce-lehrmann-interview-was-amazed-and-astounded.html
In relation to the jury, this is from the transcript of day 6 of the Board of Inquiry:
MR WHYBROW: Well, correct. I didn’t know if we were going to succeed in a not guilty, given the pretrial publicity, but for what it’s worth, Mr Chair, we as the defence team thought there were 10 people on the jury who were in favour of an acquittal. But then I could give you –
THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but then Mr Drumgold thought there were 11 in favour of
conviction.
MR WHYBROW: Yes, but I’m sure we could –
THE CHAIRPERSON: It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
MR WHYBROW: It’s a pointless exercise.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Well, it’s just –
MR WHYBROW: It’s guessing.
THE CHAIRPERSON: It’s the way you look at trials from one side of the bar table or the other, isn’t it?
In a March news story, it was reported that five days into trial the judge had a private meeting with Lehrmann’s defence lawyer and said that should his client decide to plead guilty, she would take that into account when sentencing. I think that was during Higgins’ break in giving evidence – limited media reporting then as a suppression order was in place – perhaps the time that Parliament House staff, security guards etc gave evidence. Difficult to know without transcripts.
I’m aware of that, OL, having been a juror in a sexual assault case in the ACT. However, we were unanimous in our decisions, so no holdouts in that case. I was under the impression that the 11-1 for acquittal had been leaked or discussed publicly, as per the contents of SydGal’s comment above.
Given there was zero evidence tendered in that stinking farce of a trial that could have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Lehrmann was guilty of sexual assault, it strikes me as utterly ridiculous that a jury would have been 11-1 in favour of conviction.
Wise words from a young Mr Lehrmann when asked about Canberra politics: “A bunch of losers on both sides” 👍
That Drumgold had to back down on pretty much everything when quizzed by the Sofranoff enquiry, it’s hardly a stretch to realise his assertion about the jury was just more gaslighting.
Just the other week wasn’t Drumgold claiming to have seen, but not to have the CCTV footage in question, essentially insinuating that the AFP had ‘lost’ it and/or becoming confused at possibly having seen a TV reenactment rather than the real McCoy. Yet here we are with the relevant footage turning up on ACA or whatever. Beggars belief.
It’s pretty clear why the afp doesn’t think much of Drumgold, by his words he watched that video and presented her evidence that she was so shattered drunk that she had trouble putting her shoes back on with no question or conscience. I bet this is one of many.
Unfortunately, nothing about this stinking farce beggars belief. I would like to hear some sort of logical explanation as to why the footage has resurfaced now and why it wasn’t tendered during the trial.
Obviously too much to hope for, given what’s transpired.
Yet the video clearly shows her not being able to put her shoes back on.
A large proportion of many trials is spent in ‘legal argument’, which is a euphemism for attempts to hide evidence from the jury.
The system is broken and feminists broke it. The minds of some of these women are ill-suited to the dispassionate administration of justice. Just because they’re militant and opinionated doesn’t mean they’re not hysterical.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… rofl
what C.L. says…
She wasn’t having trouble getting her shoes on, Bruce moves on and even a dead sober person would have had to abort getting them on to keep up. Bruce was clearly, in the video untroubled about whether or not she kept up, not the behaviour of a predator herding an impaired victim to their fate.
Correct Buccaneer. There was, precisely, zero evident impairment in her effort to put the shoes on. The implication that her being drunk was an issue, is false. It was simply a case that the shoes she was wearing are not a slip on/off type, and instead of taking the time required to put them back on while the guard and Bruce walked off, she carried them instead.
Also of note, in the pub footage, it was Brittany reaching out to touch Bruce multiple times, not the other way around.
Winston
Re the pub footage, was she trying to set a trap? Was he hoping that she would go away?
Hard to say, it’s only a snippet of the whole night. Definitely on the getting his attention end of the spectrum, not on the ‘get away from me’ end.
Given that in police interviews she claimed that prior to that night, Bruce had made at least one pass at her and had previously tried to kiss her, her body language shows, again precisely, zero evident discomfort in actually reaching out to touch him.
Yes, Winston, I think I saw two touches by BH to BL at the pub. Her Tinder date was pictured but apparently left after 40 minutes. Also, some proposed Victorian legislation is concerning (extract from https://mercatornet.com/the-brittany-higgins-case-shows-the-fragile-state-of-australian-justice/82072/):
“Justice in Australia is all but dead. And if you think this an exaggeration, consider the following consultation paper — released by the Victorian government — which proposes giving “complete immunity” to complainants from defamation suits. According to The Sydney Morning Herald,
Sexual assault and harassment complainants would have an immunity against being sued for defamation over reports to police and other authorities under a proposal being considered nationally.
Victoria is leading the push to extend the existing defamation defence of absolute privilege to people who make complaints to police and bodies such as anti-discrimination commissions and professional disciplinary bodies.
The “complete immunity and defence” would apply “even where the speaker deliberately or maliciously made a false or misleading statement”.“
Ms Higgins described Mr Lehrmann as “one of those … legacy ones” who would inevitably run for a federal seat.
Who was the legacy from?
All we know about Lerhmann is that he was born in Texas and his father died when he wa s 2.