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 the truth of an allegation of sexual assault behind closed doors. Only one man and one woman know the truth with certitude.

7 For an impartial outsider seeking to divine the truth (or, more accurately, ascertaining what most likely happened), two connected obstacles emerged.

8 The first is, at bottom, this is a credit case involving two people who are both, in different ways, unreliable historians.

9 Countless scholarly articles have been written seeking to explain the frailties of human memory and why it is that different people may remember the same event in different ways. People give unreliable evidence for various reasons and distinguishing between a false memory and a lie can often be difficult. Aspects of so-called "witness demeanour" or physiological signs of deceit are of little use unless the witness is cognitively aware of their deception. Recognising these realities, judges are reluctant to characterise a false representation as a lie unless another explanation is unavailable and it is necessary to do so to resolve a controversy. But as we will see, this is a case where credit findings are central and sometimes an explanation other than mendacity is not rationally available.

10 To remark that Mr Lehrmann was a poor witness is an exercise in understatement. As I will explain, his attachment to the truth was a tenuous one, informed not by faithfulness to his affirmation but by fashioning his responses in what he perceived to be his forensic interests. Ms Brittany Higgins, Mr Lehrmann's accuser, was also an unsatisfactory witness who made some allegations that made her a heroine to one group of partisans, but when examined forensically, have undermined her general credibility to a disinterested fact-finder.

11 The second and related obstacle was the assertion that what went on between these two young and relatively immature staffers led to much more. By early 2021, allegations of wrongdoing had burgeoned far beyond sexual assault. It was said a sexual assault victim had been forced by malefactors to choose between her career and justice. The perceived need to expose misconduct (and the institutional factors that allowed it) meant the rape allegation was not pursued in the orthodox way through the criminal justice system, which provides for complainant anonymity.

12 As we will also see, when examined properly and without partiality, the cover-up allegation was objectively short on facts, but long on speculation and internal inconsistencies–trying to Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369