At 10.48 on a Sunday night in June 2023, Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn’s phone pinged. It was a furious text message from Lisa Wilkinson announcing their decades-long friendship was over.
“We go back 40 years Mark and I really struggle to believe you did this to me,” texted the Network Ten journalist. “I never expected loyalty, but at least I expected decency. Lisa.”
Lisa Wilkinson, Spotlight producer Mark Llewellyn and the damning text.
Wilkinson had just watched Seven’s “tell-all” interview with former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, who had launched defamation action against her and Ten’s The Project over an interview in which Brittany Higgins accused Lehrmann – without naming him – of raping her in Parliament House.
In her text, Wilkinson accused Llewellyn of painting a “viciously warped picture” of her and her colleagues at The Project.
But, more importantly, just over an hour after the program was broadcast, Wilkinson alerted Llewellyn to Spotlight’s possible contempt of court by broadcasting material that could only be used in Lehrmann’s criminal trial, which had collapsed in October 2022 due to juror misconduct.
“Let’s light some fires,” said Lehrmann in his interview, which aired on June 4, 2023.
This week, Lehrmann’s self-immolation was complete when Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court dismissed his multimillion-dollar defamation action against Wilkinson and Ten. The judge found Lehrmann had raped Higgins in the early hours of March 23, 2019.
He also found that Lehrmann had done exactly what Wilkinson had alluded to in her text. That is, provided confidential material to Spotlight in breach of his legal obligations.
Lehrmann’s lies and Lisa’s angry text flag possible new skirmishes
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16.04.2024
At 10.48 on a Sunday night in June 2023, Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn’s phone pinged. It was a furious text message from Lisa Wilkinson announcing their decades-long friendship was over.
“We go back 40 years Mark and I really struggle to believe you did this to me,” texted the Network Ten journalist. “I never expected loyalty, but at least I expected decency. Lisa.”
Lisa Wilkinson, Spotlight producer........
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