Brittany Higgins‘ partner David Sharaz warned Lisa Wilkinson to either wait or put her LinkedIn profile on private before clicking on Bruce Lehrmann‘s profile, court documents reveal.
As many as 100 exchanges between Wilkinson, executives, and producers were released by the court on Thursday, including the exchange between Sharaz and Wilkinson.
In one of them Sharaz sent Wilkinson a link to Lehrmann’s LinkedIn profile, warning her to not click on it “or he’ll get a notification”.
Lehrmann is suing Network 10 and Wilkinson for defamation following Higgins’s interview on The Project in which she made allegations of rape against an unnamed man. He was not named in that interview but argued friends and former colleagues in Parliament House were able to identify him as the alleged rapist.
The documents reveal that Sharaz sent an email with the subject line ‘MeToo, Liberal Party, Project Pitch’, to Wilkinson ahead of The Project interview.
“I’ve got a sensitive story surrounding a sexual assault at Parliament House,” Sharaz said.
“She’s asked me to be the one to get the story told this year”.
“The girl has been through a lot, and I’m deeply protective of making sure this is done right, given going after the Liberal Party machine is no easy feat”.
He went on to say his experience working on Sky News led him to believe that Higgins would only get one pull of the “trigger” before the story was shut down.
“I can say this, it’s the first time something like that has happened under Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s watch. He can no longer use the excuse: ‘This is a bubble’ issue, or ‘this was before my time”.
Wilkinson responded saying she was keen to look into the story.
The documents also show that Wilkinson forwarded The Project‘s producers documents entitled “HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL Canberra Story’ in which she noticed there was a lot to work with.
