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of Ms Higgins' rape allegation in the following exchange (Ex 36 (at 0:13:12–42)), in the context of discussing the difficulty of proving rape:

Ms Higgins:

… fundamentally, at the end of the day, it'll come down to my word against his. And if I don't have any corroborative evidence, whether it's the tapes, whether it's the logs, I don't, I think -

Mr Sharaz:

He can just say, oh, we just had consensual sex.

Ms Wilkinson:

Yeah.

Mr Sharaz:

You've got a, let me, I'm sure you'll tell Lisa, you've got a photo of a bruise. But there was no rape kit or anything. There's nothing that we can kind of -

Ms Higgins:

No.

801 As Mr Sharaz anticipated, towards the end of the meeting, Ms Higgins pointed out (Ex 36 (at 1:23:37)):

Yeah. Yeah. I've, on my phone, a photo of my leg. I was, because he had pinned me down and I'm, I was in quite a lot of pain. I think that's kind of what woke me, sort of snapped me out of it, or woke me up. I was in a lot of pain, the way that my leg was sort of caught up against the couch. He was putting a lot of pressure on it. So, I had this big bruise on my thigh.

802 The following exchange then occurred (Ex 36 (at 1:24:21)):

Ms Wilkinson:

Have you got the photo there?

Ms Higgins:

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Ms Wilkinson:

So, you took that when you were in the office, just when it happened, or a couple of days later?

Ms Higgins:

Couple of days after.

Mr Llewellyn:

When the bruise appeared.


Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369
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