The Project’s Lisa Wilkinson hires top barrister Matthew Collins after he slammed her Logies speech in television interview

Lisa Wilkinson has enlisted the services of a top barrister who only hours earlier slammed the television star for her Logies acceptance speech and suggested there was a “serious possibility” she could be charged with contempt. 

Lisa Wilkinson has hired a top barrister just hours after he slammed the Network 10 star for her Logies acceptance speech that led to the delay of the Brittany Higgins trial.

President of the Australian Bar Association Dr Matthew Collins QC appeared on Sunrise on Wednesday where he suggested Ms Wilkinson could face legal consequences over the address she read that pushed back accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann’s case.

Mr Lehrmann has strongly denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty.

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Dr Collins argued the 62-year-old – a high profile journalist – should have recognised the risk by talking about the case close to the hearing date.

“It’s certainly possible that the authorities will be looking at the speech that she made to the Logies and assessing that speech against the standard that applies in this branch of the law,” he told the show’s hosts.

“The concern is that potential members of the jury whose job is to apply the presumption of innocence and to focus on the evidence in the trial might be influenced by things they’ve been exposed to in the media and in social media.”

But around four hours after his appearance on the program, Dr Collins was approached to represent Network Ten and Ms Wilkinson, The Australian reported.

A Ten spokesman confirmed to the publication it had reached out to the lawyer, adding the network “fully supports Lisa Wilkinson”.

“Both Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson take their legal obli­gations very seriously, including in the preparation and delivery of her speech given at the Logies event,” she said.

“In light of the continuing proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

Wilkinson reportedly sought advice about the speech from ACT’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shane Drumgold four days before the Logies on the Gold Coast.

She told Mr Drumgold on June 15 she had been nominated for Most Outstanding News Coverage or Public Affairs Report for her interview with Ms Higgins on The Project about the sexual assault allegations and read a draft of her speech.

The DPP stopped the television presenter mid-sentence and said he is not her editor before issuing a warning about the consequences of reading the speech.

Dr Collins told on Sunrise that Ms Wilkinson should have known better and flagged the speech was “ill advised”.

“The mainstream media, you guys, understand the risk inherent in talking about cases that are about to go to trial before courts – particularly serious, high-profile cases – so clearly this (Wilkinson’s Logies speech) was ill advised,” he said.

Wilkinson went on to win the gong in the news category on Sunday night and delivered the words to a televised audience of more than 885,000 viewers.

Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer Steve Whybrow applied for the trial to be vacated due to the attention being drawn to the case through searches in relation to the speech and Ms Wilkinson’s subsequent radio interview on Jonesy and Amanda the next day.

ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum agreed with Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer the attention on the case one week before the hearing on June 27 would threaten a fair trial.

She said “regrettably with gritted teeth” the trial at ACT Supreme Court “must be delayed” indefinitely as the speech and radio interview “completely obliterated the line between allegation and the finding of guilt.

“The recent publicity does in my view change the landscape because of its immediacy, its intensity and its capacity to obliterate the important distinctions between an allegation that remains untested at law, and one that has been accepted by a jury giving a true verdict according to the evidence in accordance with the respective oaths or affirmations,” Justice McCallum added.

No new date has been set for the hearing, with Justice McCallum saying she was “not in a position” to say when it would commence.