>>19155588One of the defences that Network 10 is going with is that they are not guilty of defamation because the allegations made against Bruce are true. That is why they have Higgins testifying on their behalf. They don't need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bruce raped her. They only need to prove that on the balance of probabilities, Bruce raped her i.e. based on everything it is more likely than not that he raped her.
The case has always boiled down to a he said/she said. When Bruce was on the stand he was shown to be untruthful in some past statements. Now Higgins has been shown to also be untruthful in some past statements. In my uneducated opinion, I do not think that Bruce has been shown to be more unreliable than Higgins. It's still a 50/50, chose your own drunken night adventure, where you get to decide whether Bruce raped Higgins or not. In other words the balance of probability threshold has not been met regarding the truthfulness of the allegation that Bruce raped Higgins.
But despite this Network 10 might win the case for other reasons that boil down to them have a reasonable public duty to report the allegations, and that they made reasonable attempts to find out and report Bruce's version of events too.
