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 Lehrmann had left government employment) likely to have been a useful contact. I accept the submission made by Mr Lehrmann that having regard to all the evidence, Mr Llewellyn's failure to make earlier and more detailed enquiries of how to contact Mr Lehrmann and his decision not to use Mr Lehrmann's known Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn accounts suggest that he was doing the minimum he thought he needed to do in order to say he had made attempts to contact Mr Lehrmann. I reject the notion that for an investigative journalist genuinely trying to contact someone, adopting social media avenues, even for a very serious communication, was somehow akin to sending out "smoke signals" or "paper aeroplanes" (T1632.45–47). The suggestion that Mr Lehrmann somehow made an admission of receipt when he later presented to Royal North Shore Hospital on 16 February and said he had been "contacted by journalists in the morning [of 15 February] regarding an alleged incident occurring in early 2019" (Ex R95) is less than compelling.

873 The second reason was that before the Project programme went to air, Mr Lehrmann had obtained three separate pieces of advice not to respond to media enquiries and I am satisfied by reference to his evidence given in cross-examination that even if he had seen the communications, it was unlikely he would have contacted Network Ten (T434.1–34; T449.3–450.45; T451.37–452.5; T453.5–26).

874 Mr Llewellyn gave evidence about the reason for not sending out a request for comment to Mr Lehrmann sooner than the Friday before the Project programme aired on the Monday. He agreed with Mr Bendall's evidence (Bendall (at [88])) that the desire to protect the exclusivity of the story was a reason for implementing strict confidentiality controls and processes around the story (T1620.11–26). But he then curiously denied that the desire to protect the exclusivity of the story was the reason why the request went out so late (T1620.28–1621.40). As counsel for Mr Lehrmann correctly submits, he was unable to offer any sensible explanation for why the request went out when it did, beyond that the requests went out when they were ready, and he considered it a "super reasonable" amount of time (T1620.33; T1621.11; T1621.36). It was only a "super reasonable" period if one was not interested in obtaining information from others and testing the veracity of that information with Ms Higgins. Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369