Watch live: Appeal continues after Lehrmann dubbed ‘Australia's most hated man'
Bruce Lehrmann's lawyer returns to court on Thursday in a bid to overturn a damning finding that the former federal Liberal staffer is a rapist.
Zali Burrows told the Full Court of the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday that her client had been harassed on social media and had 'pretty much become the national joke'.
'He's probably Australia's most hated man,' Burrows said.
Lehrmann is appealing against Federal Court Justice Michael Lee's landmark decision last year dismissing his defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
Lee was satisfied Ten and Wilkinson had proven to the civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins in the office of their then-boss, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, in the early hours of March 23, 2019. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence.
The Full Court of the Federal Court – Justices Michael Wigney, Craig Colvin and Wendy Abraham – started hearing the appeal on Wednesday.
Burrows has urged the court to overturn the rape finding and argued that her client was denied procedural fairness.
She submitted on Wednesday there was a difference between what she described as the 'violent rape' alleged by Ten and Wilkinson, in which Higgins said no repeatedly, and the 'non-violent rape' Lee ultimately found had occurred.
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