Why bother with a retrial when it is unlikely to add further value to Higgin’s book deal. The Director of Public Prosecutions had to eventually abandon the retrial, but it was clear that Shane Drumgold SC did not want to abandon the prosecution despite not yielding the result they wanted. There were concerns for Higgins’ wellbeing, this is the reason offered, I tend to think there is more to this.

Negotiated by Lisa Wilkinson’s husband Peter FitzSimons, the book was worth a $325k advance, that is a pretty decent down payment. I would expect it unlikely that Pirate Pete is negotiating a book advance for Bruce Lehrmann in the interest of balanced reporting, his version of events would make interesting reading.

What we do know through trial testimony is that Higgins was drafting book chapters before she reported the matter to police. Since there was no guilt recorded against Lehrmann, Higgins will be highly restricted in what she can put in her book, she will definitely be reviewed by the editor.

Wilkinson was well paid on The Project and along with FitzSimons were heavily involved with Higgins. So should Lehrmann seek restitution, both Lisa and Peter can afford a significant settlement. Wilkinson delayed the trial for three months after her speech at the Logie Awards and that may make the producers of The Project liable. They advertise The Project as news done differently, they might want to revamp their format and offer balanced reporting of the facts.

So now we learned that the Higgins team settled with the government for around $3 million, it was an undisclosed sum, but their initial demand was for that amount. Not a bad financial outcome for a trial that went nowhere. Sure, there will be lawyer’s fees to be deducted from that settlement, it is still a lot of money.

Now we need to find out if the Lehrmann team will go after some, or all of the Higgins settlement. Since there was no trial outcome, he had no opportunity to clear his name, what we do know is that the jury was unable to reach a decision, so this indicates that members of the jury did not believe the Higgins testimony.