The cross examination of Brittany Higgins continued this morning in the Federal Court of Australia.
Women’s Agenda is covering the Lehrmann v Network Ten defamation trial as it happens, with former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann accusing Lisa Wilkinson and The Project of defamation. The case is in reference to an interview between Wilkinson and Brittany Higgins, who accused Lehrmann of raping her inside Parliament House in March 2019.
Court has been adjourned this morning until 12:30pm. Here’s what we have learned so far.
Content warning: This article contains references to rape and sexual assault.
Reclaiming the dress
The dress that Higgins wore the night of her alleged rape was the centre of a lot of yesterday’s cross examination from Lehrmann’s lawyer, Mr Steve Whybrow SC.
He continued questioning Higgins about the dress this morning, this time turning to the only other time, according to her evidence in court during this trial, that she wore the white pencil dress.
Images from a Liberal party function in May 2019, during the election campaign, were tendered as evidence from Lehrmann’s legal team. It was revealed Higgins had sent these pictures to Ben Dillaway, a colleague she was “flirty” with at the time.
Higgins argued that she wore the dress this one other time after her alleged rape to try and “reclaim agency” over it. However, she told the court she never wore the dress again after that night.
Whybrow, in response, suggested this was not the case.
Whybrow: “I want to suggest to you that you took those photos and sent them because you hadn’t been sexually assaulted in that dress.
Higgins: “I understand that that’s what you’re putting to me. You’re incorrect.”
The document
When Higgins decided to reactivate the police complaint over her alleged sexual assault, she created a documented timeline of events.
Higgins said she had created the timeline intended for herself and for the police only. However, the document was also provided to The Project, Samantha Maiden from news.com.au and a number of journalists from the Canberra Press Gallery.
Whybrow questioned Higgins on the accuracy of the document, when the judge, Justice Michael Lee, stepped in to clarify her evidence.
Justice Lee: “You set out in this document your recollection of what was conveyed to you by the minister… you thought that was correct at the time you put it in the document?”
Higgins: “It wasn’t verbatim… I accept that the document is now incorrect.”
‘Not villains in the story’
Whybrow then turned to references in the document of former Minister of Defence, Senator Linda Reynolds, and her chief-of-staff, Fiona Brown.
Higgins told the court she didn’t regard Reynolds or Brown as “villains in the story”.
“Fiona Brown was just following instructions and I’ve never blamed her and I don’t blame her,” she said.
“Linda Reynolds avoided me in my view, and did not meet her duty of care. I felt unsupported. I felt unsupported by both of them, but I don’t count them as villains in this story. I just don’t think they did the right thing by me.”
Journalists access the document
In the document, Higgins named Lehrmann as her alleged rapist. She told the court she had intended to redact the name, but failed to.
The document, however, was distributed to journalists by Higgins’ partner, David Sharaz, after Samantha Maiden’s article on news.com.au and before the airing of The Project in February 2021.
Whybrow: “So it was just an accidental oversight that this document… was distributed to a lot of the Canberra press gallery and wider?”
Higgins: “Yes, it was a mistake.”
Higgins maintained that the document was initially meant for her and the police at the time she created it, but acknowledged she provided it to the media after the initial creation.
Court will resume today at 12:30pm.
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