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Mark Llewellyn, the executive producer of the Spotlight program, is leaving Seven following weeks of damaging claims about how the current affairs show secured the controversial Bruce Lehrmann interview, according to reports.
There has been a question mark over Llewellyn’s tenure at Seven following claims from former producer Taylor Auerbach, whose bombshell allegations, made in an affidavit to the Federal Court, caused Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson to be reopened.
The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald have reported that Llewellyn had engaged a lawyer to negotiate his exit from the network.
He is reported to have handed in his security pass on Wednesday and will not be returning to the building.
Mr Llewellyn has been contacted for comment and his legal representative John Laxon declined to comment.
Mr Auerbach was instrumental in locking down Bruce Lehrmann for a series of exclusive interviews for the Channel 7 program.
Text messages between production at Spotlight and Mr Lehrmann, tendered to the Federal Court, allegedly detailed plans to pay for the former political staffer’s expenses, including accommodation, meals, drugs and prostitutes.
In an affidavit to the court, Mr Auerbach claimed Seven paid for or reimbursed Mr Lehrmann for a raft of expenses, including accommodation, meals, drugs and prostitutes.
Mr Auerbach further claimed in his affidavit that thousands had been claimed on a company credit card to pay for Thai massages, against company policy and without Mr Llewellyn’s knowledge or consent.
Mr Lehrmann has denied the claims against him, claiming they are “an untrue and bizarre story from a disgruntled ex-Network Seven producer”.
A spokesman for Seven network also denied the claims, saying: “Seven did not reimburse Bruce Lehrmann for expenditure that has allegedly been used to pay for illegal drugs or prostitutes, and has never done so. Seven notes the matter remains before the courts.”
Mr Auerbach alleged in an affidavit Mr Lehrmann provided Spotlight with documents including the AFP “statement of facts” from Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial and Brittany Higgins’ texts with her former boyfriend. He alleges Mr Llewellyn passed on some of these documents, which had not been made public, to him.
MAN IN THE REFLECTION
When called to give evidence on April 4, Mr Auerbach told the court Seven had been provided with Ms Higgins’ text messages as part of their arrangement with Mr Lehrmann.
As part of his affidavit he produced photographs of screenshots on a laptop showing messages between Ms Higgins and Peter FitzSimons.
“I know that the photographs were taken by (Spotlight executive producer) Mark Llewellyn in a house rented in my name for (Mr Lehrmann) in Randwick on 4 March 2023 because I have examined the metadata of the photographs which show the precise location that the photographs were taken and the date they were taken,” Mr Auerbach said.
He also claimed that Mr Llewellyn’s image could be seen in the reflection of the laptop screen.
On Thursday he told the court that he was sent the photographs after being asked to script sections of the episode featuring Mr Lehrmann relating to Ms Higgins’ book deal and the Sofronoff inquiry.
“There is a figure in the reflection of the glass that you can see in a number of the photographs.
“In some of them that figure is clearer than others … You will see a wrist watch in bottom left hand corner of the page, you will see some eyeglasses under the words ‘the large’ and a bald head surrounding that glasses frame that I recognised to be Mr Llewellyn.”
MISSING DOCUMENTS
On Monday, an affidavit by Channel 7 commercial director Bruce McWilliams was publicly released by the court, where the executive claimed the network was not previously aware text messages between Spotlight staff and Bruce Lehrmann discussing plans to cover his expenses existed.
The affidavit, dated April 4 this year, revealed Mr McWilliams had since directed a further search of the network’s email and accounts be done to find any written communication that Mr Auerbach claimed had occurred.
Mr McWilliams said the 20 pages of accounting records documenting payments Mr Auerbach claimed had benefited Mr Lehrmann “predate Seven’s exclusivity agreement with Mr Lehrmann and were not the basis of consideration at the time”.
Mr McWilliams said those documents weren’t handed over to the court because the network didn’t believe they were payments connected to the “Lehrmann Spotlight Programme”.
Mr McWilliams said he had been “informed” by Mr Llewellyn that only conversations with Mr Lehrmann had occurred on the phone or in person.
He said because of this, the network had believed there was “no communications to produce between Mr Lehrmann and any member of the Spotlight program.
“Given Mr Llewellyn’s status as executive producer, I had no reason to doubt his indication that no written or electronic communications with Mr Lehrmann existed,” he wrote.
“Consistently with that indication, the extensive searches of Seven’s email systems that have now been performed were not performed at the time.”
BIZARRE VIDEOS
Mr Llewellyn was among the Spotlight staff dragged into the spotlight during the defamation trial, with bizarre videos being played to the court during proceedings.
One featured Mr Llewellyn wringing a towel out to the popular Boney M song Rivers of Babylon.
The lyrics “by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion” can be heard as the 18-second video plays.
At the end of the clip, Mr Llewellyn can be seen giving a thumbs up to the camera.
Another separate video featured Mr Auerbach smashing golf clubs belonging to his former Spotlight colleague Steve Jackson.
He explained he was parodying Mr Llewellyn’s original video.
Mr Auerbach told the court he “hated” Mr Jackson, but denied he was displaying hatred in the video.
“During that video you displayed absolute hatred for Mr Jackson,” Mr Richardson asked.
“No,” Mr Auerbach said
“WE MUST NEVER LIE”
In a statement to news.com.au earlier in the week, Mr Llewellyn said he had firm views on the importance of stories being honestly obtained and told.
“People who know me, people who work with me know that I have always insisted and always say that we must fight hard but we must never lie or deceive,” he said.
“We have to fight harder than other shows because we don’t have their big, bloated budgets. Ratings are obviously important in a commercial world but not at the expense of getting (and telling) stories honestly, and treating the people we interview the same way.
“My team knows my firm views.”
Justice Michael Lee is preparing to hand down his judgment in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation battle against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson on Monday.
Mr Lehrmann sued over The Project segment in February 2021 in which Brittany Higgins made rape allegations against him, although he was not named.
At the time, Mr Lehrmann had pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting Ms Higgins in the ACT Supreme Court.
The trial was later aborted due to juror misconduct before the charges were subsequently dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
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