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After four days of testimony, Brittany Higgins has completed her cross-examination this afternoon.
Just a reminder: Bruce Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson in the federal court over an interview with Higgins on Ten’s The Project in which she alleged she was raped by a Liberal staffer in Parliament House. Network Ten and Wilkinson are defending the case and Higgins is a witness for the defence.
Lehrmann had pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity had occurred in the criminal trial which was aborted due to juror misconduct.
Here’s what Higgins said under cross-examination today in the defamation case:
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Higgins told the court she received $1.9m from the commonwealth after putting in a personal injury claim. The total amount was higher – $2.3m – but legal fees and taxes were taken out of that, she said. It is the first time the value of the compensation pay out has been revealed;
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Higgins rejected a suggestion from Lehrmann’s silk, Steve Whybrow SC, that her speech outside the criminal trial was “designed to blow up a retrial”. She also told the court she chose to give evidence in person in the criminal trial and she chose to walk through the press pack because she didn’t want to look “evasive”;
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Higgins told the court she wasn’t sure Lehrmann would be found guilty in the criminal trial. Asked by Whybrow if she had told Lisa Wilkinson and a producer at the Project that she didn’t think she could win her case beyond reasonable doubt, Higgins told the court: “It’s true. I had my doubts about the justice system, but I obviously went ahead;”
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Whybrow challenged Higgins over her account of the alleged rape in Senator Linda Reynolds’ suite. He suggested to her that she took off her dress and then lay down on the couch as she was feeling sick. Higgins said she didn’t know how she got to the couch or “how or exactly where” her dress ended up;
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Whybrow also suggested to Higgins that she was not really drunk as she entered Parliament House on the night of the alleged rape. “Are you kidding?” Higgins said through tears. “I hadn’t been raped yet but I was skipping in the middle of parliament with no shoes on so it indicates someone is pretty drunk, yes”;
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Whybrow read out a message Higgins sent to a former colleague, Liberal staffer Lauren Gain, who was with her on the night of the alleged rape. “Bruce ended up taking me back to Parliament House. I passed out in the office and when I woke up he was sexually assaulting me,” Higgins wrote in the message;
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Lehrmann’s silk, Steve Whybrow, put to Higgins that she was concerned about her job and not because she was was sexually assaulted by Lehrmann. Higgins responded that “two things can be true”. “I was sexually assaulted, but I was still concerned about my job and I was starting to disclose the severity of the situation,” she told the court;
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Higgins said she deleted some conversations on her phone that “triggered her” but denied deliberately deleting messages before handing her phone to police. “Between having five phones in five years and not having the one iCloud account – I had a separate iCloud account for work – and data just got lost,” she said;
The trial continues at 10.15am tomorrow.
Higgins asked about allegation she was made to choose between job and police complaint
Before Brittany Higgins was excused from the witness box, Justice Michael Lee said he wanted to ask her a couple of questions “to clarify things”.
Lee said he wanted to ask her not about the rape allegation but about what he referred to as the “obstruction allegation”, meaning the allegation that she felt she had to choose between her job in the Liberal party and continuing with the police complaint.
“… Tell me specifically, what were the express words or the actual actions – not your feelings [but] the express words or the actual actions” of either Fiona Brown, Senator Linda Reynolds or the AFP “which obstructed you or threw up a roadblock” to continue your police complaint, he asked.
Higgins said Brown did not tell her everything that she knew about the night of the alleged rape; that Reynolds and Brown asked her to let them know if she went to the police and “it was framed in the context that it was pertinent because of the election” and finally that Reynolds’ office offered that she could be paid out of her job and return to the Gold Coast before the election.
The trial will resume tomorrow at 10.15am with a number of witnesses for the defence.
Brittany Higgins has told the court she received $1.9m from the commonwealth after putting in a personal injury claim. The total amount was higher – $2.3m – but legal fees and taxes were taken out of that, she said.
Whybrow:
Was it your understanding that part of the claim that was made was proposed to be made on behalf of your lawyers was that you would not be able to work again effectively for the rest of your life?
Higgins:
I believe it was 40 years.
Separately, Higgins was shown a statement she made on social media about being willing to be a witness in any defamation case Lehrmann may bring. She was asked what she meant by the post.
Higgins said she made a statement on social media that there was a lower burden of proof to establish that she’d sexually assaulted in a defamation trial than in a criminal trial.
Brittany Higgins says she chose to give evidence in person in the criminal trial and she chose to walk through the press pack because she didn’t want to look “evasive”.
“I wanted to do that so the jury could see my face and connect with me as a person,” Higgins said.
“Yes, I’d gone to the media, so I felt like they had a right to have my name and publish whatever they wanted.”
Whybrow also put questions to Higgins about her speech outside the criminal trial. Whybrow:
I suggest to you when you gave that speech, it was designed to blow up a retrial.
Higgins:
No, not at all.
Whybrow:
You made it clear that you didn’t think that Mr Lehrmann should have a presumption of innocence?
Higgins:
I don’t know. I don’t think he had a right to my body, but here we are.
Whybrow:
But he shouldn’t have had the right to remain silent during the trial?
Higgins:
I’m not a lawyer.
Asked whether she remembers when the ACT DPP, Shane Drumgold, was given medical reports about her, Higgins said she was hospitalised after a suicide attempt and her doctors and lawyers were handling the communication with Drumgold.
“I know that in the midst of the trial I tried to commit suicide … ” Higgins said before she was interrupted.
Lehrmann’s barrister, Steve Whybrow SC, has suggested Brittany Higgins “had a lot to lose” if Lehrmann was found not guilty in the criminal trial in the ACT.
Whybrow:
It was your belief, wasn’t it, and you expressed it to Ms Wilkinson and [Project producer] Mr [Angus] Llewellyn that you didn’t think you could win your case beyond a reasonable doubt?
Higgins:
It’s true. I had my doubts about the justice system, but I obviously went ahead.
Whybrow:
And you expressed to [The Project] then on the 27th of January that you thought you could win in a civil case on the balance of probabilities?
Higgins:
I thought it felt more likely, yes.
Higgins agreed she was afraid Lehrmann might be found not guilty.
Whybrow is now asking Higgins about her speech outside the court after the trial was aborted.
Brittany Higgins said she has not been reading the media or watching the live feed on the defamation trial because she engaged with the criminal trial and “almost killed myself”.
Higgins has become agitated about the line of questioning from Whybrow over when Senator Michaelia Cash knew about her allegations.
Justice Lee has asked her to answer the question simply without adding anything so they can finish her evidence today.
Higgins said Cash was lying in a phone call to her which she covertly recorded.
“Yeah, she was lying,” Higgins said of the call.
Whybrow then asked: “And you then proceeded over the course of about 10 minutes to tell [Cash] your narrative as to what you said about being assaulted by Mr Lehrmann?”
Higgins agreed she repeated the allegation of assault.
Higgins said during the covertly-recorded call Cash’s staffer, Daniel Try, “slipped up” and indicated he knew about the rape while Cash denied knowing about it.
“Daniel slipped up but Cash maintained the whole way that she didn’t know,” Higgins said.
Justice Lee asked if he was going to hear a recording of the call, but was told the law requires every person involved has to consent to the call being played. Higgins and Cash have consented, the court heard, but Daniel Try has not been contactable.
Higgins says she was treated poorly by bosses after alleged rape
Brittany Higgins has told the federal court she “cried with joy” when the Coalition won the 2019 election but she was suicidal after the alleged rape.
Steve Whybrow SC asked Higgins what her plans were when she was working for senator Linda Reynolds in Perth during the election campaign.
“I wasn’t well,” Higgins said. “I wasn’t thinking clearly about the future. I was suicidal at the time. I didn’t necessarily think I had a future.”
Higgins agreed that she thought both Reynolds and Brown had treated her poorly.
“Yes, that’s why I had no intention of staying in the office,” Higgins said. “I immediately wanted to transfer somewhere else.”
Whybrow asked if the two women “or the party generally” regarded her as toxic. Higgins said she “didn’t know what they would say about me per se”.
Higgins said she wanted to get a job somewhere in the Coalition but not with Reynolds or Brown.
Whybrow put it to her that she was not treated badly by the two women because in text messages with Ben Dillaway she discussed getting a job in the Liberal party back in Canberra. Higgins said she still wanted to work for the Coalition despite her experience with Reynolds and Brown.
She eventually got a job in Michaelia Cash’s office.
Bruce Lehrmann seen during break at the federal court
Brittany Higgins returned to the witness box today for her fourth full day of testimony.
Just a reminder: Bruce Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson in the federal court over an interview with Higgins on Ten’s The Project in which she alleged she was raped by a Liberal staffer in Parliament House. Network Ten and Wilkinson are defending the case and Higgins is a witness for the defence.
Lehrmann had pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity had occurred in the criminal trial which was aborted due to juror misconduct.
Here’s what Higgins said under cross-examination this morning in the defamation case:
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Lehrmann’s silk Steve Whybrow put to Higgins that she was concerned about her job and not because she was was sexually assaulted by Lehrmann. Higgins responded that “two things can be true”. “I was sexually assaulted, but I was still concerned about my job and I was starting to disclose the severity of the situation,” she told the court;
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Whybrow challenged Higgins over her account of the alleged rape in senator Linda Reynolds’ suite. He suggested to her that she took off her dress and then lay down on the couch as she was feeling sick. Higgins said she didn’t know how she got to the couch or “how or exactly where” her dress ended up;
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Whybrow also suggested to Higgins that she was not really drunk as she entered Parliament House on the night of the alleged rape. “Are you kidding?” Higgins said through tears. “I hadn’t been raped yet but I was skipping in the middle of parliament with no shoes on so it indicates someone is pretty drunk, yes”;
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Higgins agreed her Bumble date may have left early from The Dock hotel on the night of the alleged rape because she ignored him, rather than because he was “mercilessly bullied” by others as Higgins had previously said. “When I was there, he was made fun of. But yes, in hindsight, I was very rude to my date and he left because I was rude to my date,” she said in court;
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Whybrow read out a message Higgins sent to a former colleague, Liberal staffer Lauren Gain, who was with her on the night of the alleged rape. “Bruce ended up taking me back to Parliament House. I passed out in the office and when I woke up he was sexually assaulting me,” Higgins wrote in the message;
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Higgins said she deleted some conversations on her phone that “triggered her” but denied deliberately deleting messages before handing her phone to police. “Between having five phones in five years and not having the one iCloud account – I had a separate iCloud account for work – and data just got lost,” she said;
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The judge also ruled Whybrow can cross-examine Higgins on the proposition she made “false representations” about her health to prevent a retrial.
Higgins will continue being cross-examined this afternoon.
Cross-examination of Brittany Higgins continues
Whybrow: “I just want to put some propositions to you quickly before lunch about that first meeting with Fiona Brown.
“I suggest you said you didn’t remember accessing the office; that you’d been out and that you’d been drinking or you were drunk; or words to that effect.”
Higgins: “I definitely told her that I ended up back in the office but I didn’t know what time.”
Whybrow asked if Higgins remembers what she told Fiona Brown about the circumstances of her waking up in the minister’s suite. Whybrow asked if she remembers telling Brown “when you woke up you were half naked”.
Whybrow: “Do you remember telling [Fiona Brown] that?”
Higgins: “I was never woken up by security guards per se. I remember them yelling into the office.”
Whybrow: “And it was at that point that she offered you or discussed with you the employee assistance program [EAP] about getting some counselling from what must have been a humiliating experience to wake up in the minister’s office, having passed out drinking?”
Higgins: “No, I was offered the EAP after I broke down because I had just disclosed I’d been raped.
Whybrow: “Well, I suggest you didn’t.”
Higgins: “That’s incorrect.”
A warning for readers: this blog contains graphic details of allegations of sexual assault.
The court has taken an hour for a lunch break and will return at 2pm.
Before lunch, Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister, Steve Whybrow, cross-examined Brittany Higgins about when she disclosed to her friend Ben Dillaway that she had been sexually assaulted.
According to text messages read to the court, Higgins told Dillaway she was concerned about losing her job after she had a meeting with her chief of staff, Fiona Brown. Brown met with both Lehrmann and Higgins after it was discovered they had entered Parliament House after hours.
Whybrow put it to Higgins that she was concerned about her job and not because she had been sexually assaulted by Lehrmann.
“Two things can be true,” Higgins said. “I was sexually assaulted, but I was still concerned about my job and I was starting to disclose the severity of the situation to Ben.”
Whybrow: “You hadn’t said anything about being sexually assaulted to Fiona Brown, had you?”
Higgins: “I had. The first person I disclosed to was Fiona Brown. And then I started to disclose to people who I cared about, which was Ben, I would never have had the courage to do it otherwise.”
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