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 himself forward as a conduit for communication. At first glance, one would have thought this would have prompted efforts to ensure all important communications thereafter were with Ms Higgins directly. This does not mean Ms Higgins should have been patronised and it somehow assumed she was acting under the Svengali-like influence of Mr Sharaz, and it became evident she was very much aware of what was going on, but it was unusual that he be used as the conduit for information. Although reasonable minds might differ, Mr Llewellyn genuinely thought it was appropriate to use Mr Sharaz as a conduit in order to communicate with Ms Higgins (T1536.28–29). In fairness to him, it also became apparent that Ms Higgins was quite content for Mr Sharaz to be the primary point of contact and she shared Mr Sharaz's views about the culpability and shortcomings of various politicians and they both very much wanted to hold them to account. But dealing with Ms Higgins in this way increased the need for care and caution.

799 Thirdly, was the remarkable assertion by Ms Higgins that her phone might have been remotely wiped (Ex 36 (at 1:42:06)). Mr Llewellyn's evidence that he took that suggestion with a "massive grain of salt" and that he thought it sounded fanciful (T1514.13–1515.3) is significant and merits attention. One would have thought this was a warning light alerting to the necessity for care in assessing whether the maker of such a representation was open to speculation and conspiracies. Indeed, in written submissions, Network Ten accepted this amounted to a "conspiracy theory". Apart from the more general credit concern, it is decidedly odd that in these circumstances, Mr Llewellyn did not wonder why certain material was being provided but some was unavailable (T1516.9–33). In this regard, it is not obvious Ms Wilkinson, at least initially, thought this prospect of remote deletion was fanciful. I referred above to Mr Sharaz's accusation during the first interview (Ex 36 (at 0:06:00)) that "the Liberal Party provided [Ms Higgins] a psychologist who encouraged her not to do anything about it" (which was later not embraced by Ms Higgins). But the immediate response to the possibility an email existed corroborating this further claim was for Ms Wilkinson to say: "Given what happened to your phone, which we'll get to, I'd be retrieving that in the next 24 hours", that is, apparently entertaining the notion that such a document might also be deleted.

800 Fourthly, there was not only the incomplete data but also the nature of the most important aspect of limited material said to be available, being corroborative photographs of a bruise. Importantly, Mr Sharaz had introduced the bruise photograph in establishing the credibility Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369