Shortcut: Dabbling in Defamation
Australian True Crime
Bravecasting
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2024
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is a "Shortcut" episode. It’s a shortened version of this week’s more detailed full episode, which is also available on our feed.
It's been quite a season of high-profile defamation cases in Australia in recent years.
Geoffrey Rush, Craig McLachlan, Ben Roberts-Smith, and Bruce Lehrmann, to name a few.
Along with the risks of airing all of your dirty laundry for the world to see, a defamation case doesn't come cheap either. Lehrmann, who recently lost his defamation lawsuit against Channel 10, is rumoured to have legal fees amounting to more than 8 million dollars.
We're joined on Australian True Crime today by Victoria-Jane Otavski, a litigator with over 20 years of experience specialising in defamation law, to explain what defamation is and why these cases so rarely succeed in court.
You can click here to learn more or get in contact with Victoria-Jane Otavski at Blackbay Lawyers
For Support:
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CREDITS:
Host: Meshel Laurie. You can find her on Instagram
Guest: Victoria-Jane Otavski
Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard
This episode contains extra content from ABC News and 10 News First
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're bringing Australian True Crime live to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne this July, |
| 0:04.3 | and I have to tell you that Brisbane sold out already. |
| 0:07.4 | Good for you, Brisbane, so we've quickly added a second show. |
| 0:10.3 | Now we can't keep adding more shows, so please make sure you get your tickets. Our special guests, |
| 0:15.2 | our forensic criminologist Santee Mallet in Brisbane and Sydney and the one and only Charlie Bazzina in |
| 0:19.9 | Melbourne. There'll be a Q&A of course so you can ask your own burning questions on the night but you have to book quickly. |
| 0:26.0 | This is a true crime podcast as the title suggests. |
| 0:29.0 | So please consider this your warning that it's not suitable for children and it probably will |
| 0:33.8 | contain content that may be triggering to some people. Also it's an Australian |
| 0:38.4 | true-crime podcast so Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander |
| 0:42.0 | listeners should be aware it may contain the voices of deceased people. |
| 0:47.0 | The producers of this podcast recognize the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. |
| 0:57.0 | They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging. |
| 1:11.1 | To remark that Mr Lehman is a poor witness as an exercise of understatement, an untruthful person |
| 1:16.7 | may just be all mouth and trousers, or may be recklessly indifferent to the truth, |
| 1:21.0 | all these falsehoods together with his Walter Mitty-like |
| 1:23.6 | imaginings demonstrate that Mr Lerman has no compunction about departing from the |
| 1:27.5 | truth if he thought it was expedient. Those are some of the comments made by Justice Michael Lee as he handed down his long-awaited decision in the defamation case brought by Bruce Leherman against Channel 10 and Lisa Wilkinson. |
| 1:46.0 | Long story short, Lerman lost. |
| 1:48.0 | He was declared by the judge by the balance of probabilities to have raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House |
| 1:55.0 | and he's now back in court for the costs hearing during which the judge will decide |
| 1:59.4 | how much money he owes Channel 10 for taking them to court. |
... |
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