“I would have followed that advice”: Lisa Wilkinson denies speech warning

Lisa Wilkinson would not have made a speech at the Logie Awards if she had been warned by ACT Prosecutor Shane Drumgold, according to a statement released by a public inquiry this week.

In 2022 Wilkinson won a Logie for her Project interview with Brittany Higgins but the speech triggered a trial delay.

Director of Public Prosecutions Drumgold this week told the public inquiry he had warned Wilkinson, that Bruce Lehrmann’s defence team could lodge a stay application if there was any more publicity.

In a statement released by the inquiry, Wilkinson said “If Mr Drumgold had told me not to give the speech, I would have followed that advice.

“If Mr Drumgold had told me that ‘publicity’ posed a risk to the trial, I would have further questioned that issue, especially given the publicity that had already occurred regarding the Logies, and the inherent publicity that could follow from the Logie award nomination irrespective of any speech given by me.”

Wilkinson said she “specifically” raised the speech with Drumgold “because I was concerned to ensure that it did not in any way impact on the trial, and trusted that he would appropriately advise or warn me of any risk that he perceived”.

“The only clear warning I was given was not to mention the trial, and I did not,” she said in the statement.

Drumgold conceded in evidence he misread the exchange saying, “I thought this was someone telling me they were up for an award.”

10 lawyers contacted Mr Drumgold five times between June and December last year, begging him to clear Wilkinson of any wrongdoing in the public eye.

Asked by his lawyer Mark Tedeschi why he didn’t make any statement to clear Wilkinson he replied: ‘”It would have been completely inappropriate.”

“I would have been, correctly, publicly chastised for that.

“This was about a trial, not about a TV personality’s reputation.”

Bruce Lehrmann has consistently denied allegations that he raped Brittany Higgins, a colleague and fellow political staffer, in the office of then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019. He pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity had occurred.

Source: The Age, Daily Mail