Brittany Higgins directly addressed her accused rapist, Bruce Lehrmann, in a courtroom on Friday, telling him “nothing was fine after what you did to me”.
Higgins’s cross-examination resumed on Friday morning, and the defence barrister, Steven Whybrow, began questioning her about the days that followed her alleged rape in Parliament House in the early hours of 23 March 2019.
Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty and is fighting one charge of sexual intercourse without consent.
Higgins broke down when Whybrow put it to her that Lehrmann had not raped her, and that he had not been in the minister’s office.
“He was in there,” Higgins said. “He was physically violating me.”
Whybrow put it to Higgins that she had “completely cordial and normal” email exchanges with Lehrmann in the days after her alleged rape.
“I wouldn’t say normal, I think after a trauma you go through a sort of strange holding period of an extended freeze, I guess,” she said. “But yeah, I was trying to maintain calm because he had a higher station in the office than me.
“I was just trying to hold on… I was scared.”
Higgins has also denied a suggestion that she made up the allegation to save her job after getting in trouble over the late-night visit to parliament.
Higgins said she was “not a monster” and would never do that.
“You are asserting to me that I completely fabricated this, just to keep a job,” she said. “I cared about my job but I would never do that.”
Whybrow suggested to Higgins that she then decided not to pursue a police complaint in 2019, because she had achieved her goal of saving her job.
“You didn’t pursue a complaint in April or thereafter because what you had intended to achieve had been achieved, that is to save your job?” Whybrow said.
Higgins said she didn’t pursue the complaint because she had been pressured by her superiors, including her then-minister Linda Reynolds.
Whybrow put it to Higgins that she had acted normally in the office in the days following the 23 March 2019 because there was no rape.
“I know that’s what you think,” Higgins said.
Whybrow responded: “No, it’s what I’m putting to you.”
Higgins replied: “I don’t accept it at all.”
Higgins said the email exchange with Lehrmann was part of her dealing with her trauma.
“It was me compartmentalising my trauma trying to do my job which I cared about more than, weirdly, my own life, which is fucked up, sorry,” she said.
Whybrow suggested to Higgins that she had only raised her allegations of rape when she realised her dream job was under threat.
Higgins then directly addressed Lehrmann, who was sitting across the courtroom from her, for the first time during her evidence.
“Up until then I was holding it in, holding it in, holding it in, pretending like everything was fine,” she said. “Nothing was fine, nothing was fine after what you did to me.”
The court has previously seen a photograph of bruising on Higgins’ leg, which she says was sustained during the assault.
Whybrow suggested to Higgins that there was no reference to the bruising found in an examination of her phone devices, until 2021.
“I suggest that the photograph of the bruise and your assertion that it was an injury sustained during this assault is a fabrication?” Whybrow said.
Higgins responded: “OK sure, I reject you completely.”
Whybrow asked Higgins about her evidence that she told her then chief of staff, Fiona Brown, of the alleged rape in their first meeting, which took place after Brown was alerted to the late-night visit of Lehrmann and Higgins to parliament by the Department of Parliamentary Services.
Higgins maintained she told Brown in the first meeting that she had been raped, on Tuesday 26 March 2019, three days later. She said Brown was the first person she told.
Higgins denied a suggestion that Reynolds, then the defence industry minister, had urged her to go to police. Higgins has previously given evidence that she felt pressured into not making a police complaint.
“I wouldn’t say urging, no,” Higgins said. “She was aware it was an option for me, she had raised it, she had raised it in the context of the election.”
The court heard that Higgins had given permission to a friend and fellow political staffer, Ben Dillaway, to approach the prime minister’s office about the alleged rape. He did so in early April.
Higgins said she had reached out to Dillaway – the pair were very close – because she did not feel supported by her own office.
Higgins agreed that she had bought a bottle of champagne for Brown in June, had bought flowers for Reynolds, and had sent a text to Brown thanking her for all her support.
She said she was being polite to her superiors and trying to maintain good relationships because parliament was a small place.
Whybrow suggested to Higgins that she had wrongly told police during an interview on 1 April 2019 that she had already been to see a doctor after her alleged rape, and was awaiting test results.
Higgins said she had made plans to see a doctor, but had failed to follow through.
“I wasn’t perfect,” she said.
The court also heard that police notes from an interview two years later, conducted after she decided to reinstate her complaint, recorded her telling detectives she had been to a medical centre in Kingston, Canberra, two weeks after the alleged rape.
Higgins said she could not recall saying that to police. She said she did remember saying generally that she had been to that medical centre for treatment.
But she said if she had told police she had been there two weeks after the alleged rape, it would have been wrong.
The trial continues before the chief justice, Lucy McCallum, in the ACT supreme court.
