Network Ten’s lawyer Dr Matt Collins KC asked Brittany Higgins why she decided to go public through the media, instead of only going to the police, about her alleged rape in Parliament House in 2019.
“I was angry with how they treated women,” she said, “and I was done. I couldn’t be silent anymore. It wasn’t just me.”
Higgins had watched the ABC’s Four Corners program, which detailed the sexual assault claims against former attorney general Christian Porter. It was at this moment that she decided to contact Samantha Maiden from news.com.au and Angus Llewellyn from The Project.
“It all rung so true,” Higgins said, in reference to the Christian Porter allegations in the Four Corners program.
“I finally got a grasp on my workplace… I wasn’t so scared anymore.”
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.
Today, Higgins has continued answering questions from Network Ten’s barrister Dr Matt Collins KC. Here’s what we learned.
Content warning: This article contains references to rape and sexual assault.
After the alleged rape
On the Monday following the alleged rape in Minister of Defence Linda Reynolds’ office, Higgins said she was “disassociating”, only managing to get through “what I had to do” during the day.
Meanwhile, Lehrmann was acting “like nothing happened”. She said he was extra “friendly” to her, which was unusual to her.
“I think because we’d never had… a friendly social relationship,” Higgins said. “And then suddenly after he raped me there was this familiarity… that I felt was undeserved. And it.. I don’t know, it just really freaked me out.”
The following day, Lehrmann and Higgins met with Fiona Brown separately over security breaches from accessing Parliament House out of hours. It seemed Lehrmann had been “fired” in his meeting with Brown, according to Higgins.
In her private meeting with the ministerial chief-of-staff, Higgins disclosed the alleged assault to Brown – the first person she spoke to about it.
Throughout that week, Higgins had disclosed what had happened to several other staffers at Minister Reynolds’ office, including Nikita Irvine and Christopher Payne.
That weekend, Higgins had also met with her father in Canberra. She told him that “something bad had happened at work” – but she didn’t want to talk about it.
Higgins: “Even if I give him (Lehrmann) the benefit of every doubt, how could he leave me like that?”
The following Monday, Higgins met with Minister Reynolds for the first time since the alleged rape – in the very room where the alleged rape occurred.
While being back in the room traumatised her, triggering panic attacks that would ensue for the remainder of her time in Canberra, certain moments in that meeting stuck with her.
“The Minister said, ‘I’m sorry… these are things women go through’,” Higgins recalled.
Reynolds and Brown had told Higgins if she went to the police, to keep them informed.
The response
What occurred after that was what Higgins described as “weird”.
While Brown referred Higgins to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for counselling, and even escorted Higgins to the Parliamentary Police station, Brown had given Higgins a choice for the future of her time as an assistant media advisor in Minister Reynolds’ office.
She could go with the Minister to Western Australia to campaign for the 2019 election. Or, she could receive what Higgins described as a “pay-out”, and go back with her family to her home on the Gold Coast.
Meanwhile, progressing her initial “meet-and-greet” with police officers regarding the alleged assault was hitting roadblocks as officers were “having difficulty” obtaining CCTV footage from Parliament House from Friday 22 March 2019.
Understanding the difficulties of what would come, she decided to withdraw her police complaint and go to Western Australia with Minister Reynolds.
‘Abandoned’
But the experience in Western Australia was far from rewarding for Higgins. She told the court that Minister Reynolds “actively avoided” her and “didn’t even like being in a room” with her.
Other staffers for Minister Reynolds didn’t treat her any better, which caused Higgins to feel extremely “hurt” by it all.
Higgins: “I was really personally hurt by all these people that I loved, or, you know, worked with in my time of need when something horrendous happened, all these good people did nothing … I can’t explain how hurt I was that I was just abandoned.”
In the closing minutes of today’s hearing, Higgins began describing her initial interaction with the media to go public with the allegations, including the creation of a timeline of events in a document, which she provided both to police and eventually to the media.
The hearing will recommence tomorrow at 10:15am.
If you are concerned about your behaviour, or about someone using violence, call Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
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In an emergency call 000.