A ‘hapless’ Bumble date, Qing dynasty ceramics and the Algonquin round table: the best lines from the Bruce Lehrmann verdict

Justice Michael Lee spent two-and-a-half hours delivering an oral summary of his 324-page judgment in the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann against Channel Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.

All these falsehoods, together with his Walter Mitty-like imaginings in skiting to Ms Gain about the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Asis), demonstrate that Mr Lehrmann had no compunction about departing from the truth if he thought it expedient.

After being forsaken like a shag on a rock for an extended period and despite then making successful attempts to interact with some of the group on the larger table, Nick understandably left The Dock, no doubt ruing swiping right.

Ms Higgins seems by this stage to be ebullient, putting her hands in the air and is evidently in high spirits; although it is easy to be distracted at this point in the video by two happy middle-aged ladies re-enacting what might be a scene out of Mamma Mia in the background.

Mr Lehrmann asks me to accept the proposition that it was ‘a process to get in’ to his shared flat and that to avoid this complication, he preferred to: (a) go out of his way to go back to work in the early hours; (b) lie to Parliament House security; (c) sign the necessary register; (d) be issued with a pass; (e) go through a metal detector; (f) be escorted by a security guard to his office; (g) obtain his keys from his office; (h) book another Uber; (i) go back through a Parliamentary exit; (j) meet the ride-share car; and then (k) ride home.

As I have already noted, put in stark terms, it is fanciful a somewhat lubricated male staffer accompanied by a woman he found attractive, who he had just been ‘pashing’ in a nightclub despite having a girlfriend, would then be interested, after coming to a private place very late, to just say ‘cheerio’, and then soberly proceed to note up briefs for a Question Time that was not to occur for one and a half weeks, a fortiori when the staffer had already resigned; had no outstanding tasks; was not ordinarily involved in work concerning the Defence portfolio; and hitherto had demonstrated no outward signs of being a workaholic.