That might soften the blow! Bruce Lehrmann shares a wine with his lawyer - after failing to get $50,000 out of Daily Mail Australia for absurd reason

Daily Mail​

17-07-2025

Bruce Lehrmann has been pictured enjoying a glass of wine with lawyer Zali Burrows in a cosy Tasmanian bar after yet another major court loss.
The former political staffer and his solicitor were spotted having an early evening drink at Mary Mary in Hobart's fashionable Salamanca Place, before heading next door to Peppina Italian restaurant.
Lehrmann and Ms Burrows shared a bottle of red with their meal before leaving the Parliament Square precinct so that she could catch a flight back to Sydney on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Lehrmann had sent Ms Burrows along to Hobart Magistrates Court to seek a restraining order against a Daily Mail Australia reporter, after he unsuccessfully demanded $50,000 in damages for a story he didn't like.
It is now 15 months since Federal Court judge Michael Lee found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped his one-time colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House.
Six months after Justice Lee ruled Lehrmann had not been defamed by Network Ten during an interview with Ms Higgins, the Centrelink recipient was crying poor in the same court.
Responding to Ten's demand Lehrmann provide $200,000 security to appeal against Justice Lee's decision, Ms Burrows said her client was 'pretty much unemployable' and did not have the funds.
'The only shot he'd probably ever have in making money is by going on OnlyFans or something silly like that,' Ms Burrows told the court.
Justice Wendy Adams ultimately found Lehrmann did not have to put up the $200,000, but he still faces picking up $2million of Ten's legal costs for the original trial if he loses his appeal.
Last week, Lehrmann demanded Daily Mail Australia pay him $50,000 plus legal costs, and take down a story he claimed portrayed him in a bad light.
Lehrmann also sought an interim restraining order against reporter Karleigh Smith who had written the piece about his new life with a 45-year-old mother-of-two in a Tasmanian hamlet.
Daily Mail Australia did not take down the story, did not pay Lehrmann a cent and successfully challenged the interim order on Tuesday after a hearing in Hobart Magistrates Court.
When Ten sought the $200,000 security from Lehrmann, Ms Burrows described her client as 'arguably Australia's most hated man' and said he was too 'scared' to appear in person in the Federal Court.
On Tuesday, he again chose to stay away from proceedings when Ms Burrows sought the interim restraining order.
The court heard the order would cover Lehrmann as well as Kelly Walker, with whom the 30-year-old had been living at Port Huon, about 55km south-west of Hobart.
Lehrmann has been acting as a male nanny to Ms Walker's two sons, who are said to call him 'Uncle Bruce', which was the subject of a story published by Daily Mail Australia on July 1.
Lehrmann and Ms Burrows shared a bottle of red with their meal before leaving the Parliament Square precinct so that she could catch a flight back to Sydney on Tuesday
That story ran under the headline which began: 'Bruce Lehrmann's last chance saloon'.
'We found the despised party boy hiding at the end of the Earth - and he's shacked up with a single mum who has a LOT to say to the local haters,' it continued.
Lehrmann outlined in an affidavit produced for the restraining order application the 'extraordinary and unorthodox' lengths he had gone to avoid publication attention.
'I have been the subject of intense and ongoing media scrutiny since 2021, much of it vile, false and extremely hurtful,' he wrote.
'I have received credible threats to my safety, online abuse, and been physically stalked by journalists or private individuals on multiple occasions.
'I have long suffered mental health trauma because of the coverage, and this has been well documented publicly and in the Federal Court of Australia.
'As a result, I take extraordinary and unorthodox precautions to ensure my safety and wellbeing.'
Ms Burrows claimed Lehrmann had suffered significant distress and psychological injury as a result of being 'pursued' as part of Daily Mail Australia's investigation.
'My client will be providing evidence of personal injury to his mental condition,' she told magistrate Jackie Hartnett.
Ms Burrows claimed Smith and a photographer 'dangerously' followed Lehrmann in a car on a dirt road, which Smith has vehemently denied.
Barrister Nic Edmondson, acting for Smith, said the Sydney-based reporter had only visited Tasmania for work once - to write the story about Lehrmann - and she had not returned to the state since.
Mr Edmondson submitted a restraining order risked unfairly impacting on Smith's freedom of speech and would prevent her writing future stories about Lehrmann.
'She is entitled to engage in the type of conduct that she did, in following Mr Lehrmann and in photographing Mr Lehrmann,' Mr Edmondson said.
Ms Burrows claimed Lehrmann had suffered further psychological harm because Smith was represented by Mark O'Brien Legal, a law firm which had previously acted for him.
Mark O'Brien Legal has been engaged for more than a decade by Daily Mail Australia to provide legal services to the publisher and its journalists.
Ms Hartnett rejected Lehrmann's application for an interim order and set the matter down for a November 13 hearing.
'I am not satisfied on the material before me that an interim order is appropriate,' she said.
Hours later, Lehrmann and Ms Burrows were pictured together by a freelance photographer who had not been commissioned by Daily Mail Australia and had offered the images to other media outlets.
Asked to comment on what had happened in court, Lehrmann said: 'We are very grateful to the magistrate for getting a fast hearing on the case.'
Ms Burrows is also representing Lehrmann in another case in which he has pleaded not guilty to stealing a Toyota Prado from a farm in the Huon Valley, south of Hobart.
That matter returns to court in September.
Lehrmann sued Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson over a February 2021 interview on The Project in which Ms Higgins alleged she had been raped on a couch at Parliament House almost two years earlier.
While Lehrmann was not named, he claimed he was easily identifiable as the onetime colleague Ms Higgins said had sexually assaulted her in the office of Senator Linda Reynolds.
The defamation case came after Lehrmann, who has always denied raping Ms Higgins, faced a criminal trial which was abandoned due to juror misconduct in 2022.
Lehrmann is separately accused of twice raping a woman in October 2021 the morning after they met at a strip club in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.
Ms Burrows filed an application in Toowoomba District Court in June seeking a permanent stay in Lehrmann's pending trial on the rape charges.
Lehrmann's appeal against Justice Lee's decision in the defamation matter is listed for hearing in the Federal Court on August 20.