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The court is continuing to hear arguments about whether the usual 12-month time limit on bringing defamation claims should be extended. If successful in extending the time limit, Lehrmann will be able to pursue his defamation claim against Network Ten, News Corp, Lisa Wilkinson and Samantha Maiden over their initial publications of Brittany Higgins’s allegations in February 2021.

Justice Michael Lee has begun proceedings by explaining his reasons for declining a previous request from Wilkinson’s lawyers to produce a report detailing the contents of Lehrmann’s phone. The report, a single document, contained almost 40,000 pages of contacts, calendar, calls, chats, emails, instant messages, GPS tracking notes, cookies, data files, audio, installed apps and searched items as far back as 2017.

Lee described the request as a “classic fishing expedition“ and said the case was not some sort of “roving inquiry” into everything that Lehrmann did, said and thought.

He said “on any rational view, it could never be discoverable, and more importantly has no apparent relevance” to the case.

The court instead received a more limited version of the contents of Lehrmann’s phone, which, among other things, showed his messages to friends on 15 February 2021, the date the Higgins allegations first appeared in the media.

In his reasons for delaying his defamation claim, Lehrmann said he was acting on the advice of his then lawyer, Warwick Korn, that he should wait until the conclusion of any criminal proceedings.

But the messages showed he was telling his then girlfriend on 15 February, while in Korn’s office, that defamation was a “definite” and “he says I’m up for millions as defamation”. He also told another friend that: “Criminal, he says, is off the cards completely”.

Lehrmann said he had fabricated those conversations with his lawyer to reassure his former partner, who was distraught.

The court heard on Thursday that Korn would not be called to give evidence. Lehrmann’s lawyers had previously signalled that it would attempt to call Korn to give evidence about his interactions with Lehrmann in February 2021.

Lehrmann has denied allegations he raped Higgins and pleaded not guilty at trial, which was aborted due to juror misconduct.