The Ten lawyer who approved Lisa Wilkinson’s 2022 Logies acceptance speech has stood by the advice, despite it resulting in the delay of Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial and intense media scrutiny for the former The Project presenter.

Tasha Smithies, senior legal counsel at Network Ten, returned to the witness stand on Wednesday in a Federal Court hearing stemming from defamation proceedings brought by Lehrmann against the broadcaster and Wilkinson.

The defamation case followed a February 2021 report on The Project that aired Brittany Higgins’ claims that she was raped in Parliament House.

Wilkinson is pursuing a cross-claim against Ten to pay her legal costs after retaining her own legal representation in the defamation matter, saying she did not have faith the broadcaster would act in her legal interests.

The veteran journalist gave evidence on Tuesday that Ten had refused to publicly admit Ms Smithies and senior executives gave their approval for her to deliver the speech.

On Wednesday, Ms Smithies told the court Wilkinson had become “part of the story” at the time of her speech and to deviate from her support of Ms Higgins could create greater problems with her giving evidence at Lehrmann’s trial.

“She would be a witness then who could be perceived as wavering in her support of Ms Higgins, which is a stance she had taken for the preceding 18 months,” she said.

“It was my view that from the time after the broadcast of the story Ms Wilkinson was inextricably intertwined with Ms Higgins.”

The lawyer agreed when asked by Federal Court Justice Michael Lee that Wilkinson’s role as a respected journalist gave credence to the idea of Ms Higgins being a “woman of courage whose story must be believed” after her speech.

“And you as a solicitor thought that that was appropriate to occur by a crown witness eight days before a criminal trial?” Justice Lee asked her.

“I think given all the circumstances available that that was the preferred course to her not giving a speech,” Ms Smithies replied.

“I am very accepting of the fact that … others may hold a different view in relation to the advice, however I still stand by the advice that was given.”

In an affidavit, Wilkinson said after the speech she felt “isolated, unprotected and abandoned” by Ten.

She added that given the breakdown in the relationship between her and the broadcaster she did not have any confidence the network would make legal decisions with any regard to her interests in the defamation case.

Ten retained Matthew Collins KC and Marlia Saunders to represent both the company and Wilkinson in the defamation case brought by Lehrmann.

Shortly after the Logies speech, Dr Collins was interviewed on Seven’s Sunrise program, in which he called the speech “ill-advised”.

In her affidavit, Wilkinson said she could not understand why the barrister had been engaged to act for her when he had just criticised her on national television.

Five months after the Logies speech, Wilkinson was informed she would be removed as co-host of The Project with two years still left on her contract.

Wilkinson said she was informed by her agent the decision to remove her was because there was too much heat on her following the Logies and therefore too much “brand damage”.

Lehrmann has always denied any sexual contact occurred with Ms Higgins. His criminal trial was eventually derailed by juror misconduct.

The hearing continues.

This post was originally published on Michael West.