Ten producer accused of burying Higgins' 'unanswerable questions'

"What Miss Higgins was saying about a complete death of her phone and the survival of a few other photographs was nonsensical," Matthew Richardson SC asked on Tuesday.

"It was so silly that the questions it raised were, as you said, unanswerable. You decided, didn't you, to just bury this issue?"

Angus Llewellyn, a former The Project producer, denied the claims from the Federal Court witness box and defended his work.

Mr Llewellyn is one of more than a dozen witnesses giving evidence in the defamation proceedings Bruce Lehrmann has brought against Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

Mr Lehrmann is suing the parties over a The Project 2021 story which he claims identified him as the accused perpetrator of Ms Higgins' alleged rape at Parliament House two year earlier.

Since last week, Ten and Ms Wilkinson have been calling witnesses in their defence as they attempt to prove the rape allegation was substantially true and reporting it professionally was in the public interest.

On Tuesday, Mr Richardson, representing Mr Lehrmann, criticised the television producer about a number of issues, including airing an unverified image of Ms Higgins' leg bruise.

While she told a criminal trial the bruise was a result of the alleged assault, she backtracked during the defamation proceedings and said could not be sure it hadn't been caused by a fall on the same night.

"You knew the one piece of physical evidence she supplied to you could not be verified," the barrister said.

While Mr Llewellyn said he assumed the image Ms Higgins Airdropped him in January 2021 was an original, metadata showed it had, in fact, been a screenshot with no evidence of when it was originally taken.

"The only way we were going to use that, because of the lack of clarity, was [if] we had a statutory declaration [signed by Ms Higgins]," Mr Llewellyn said.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

The court heard an exchange of messages between the producer and Ms Wilkinson ahead of the broadcast, during which the high-profile journalist said she wanted to "zero in a little bit on this whole phone thing".

"I need to know what Vodafone are saying about her phone going to black?" Ms Wilkinson wrote, referring to Ms Higgins' claim her phone had died and lost significant data.

"And if she says she took screenshots of crucial messages she now no longer has, how come she still has the bruise shot? I'm confused on this point.

"And why is she delaying, or appears to be delaying, getting answers on that?"

The photo's existence, the barrister said, was contrary to Ms Higgins' narrative about a "destroyed phone".

Mr Llewellyn rejected that Ms Higgins' being unable to address the unanswerable questions raised by the phone issue made her appear "either unreliable or a liar".

Mr Lehrmann has always denied raping Ms Higgins and no findings have been made against him.

His criminal trial was aborted last October due to juror misconduct, with the charge levelled at him later discontinued over concerns for Ms Higgins' mental health.

The trial continues.