Brittany Higgins “desperately did want to report” her alleged rape but she did not want to lose her “dream job” in politics, a rape crisis counsellor has told the federal court.
At the end of the third week of the defamation trial, the counsellor, Catherine Cripps, said Higgins was in an emotional “tug of war” between “I want to report but I want my job”.
Higgins told ACT police in a meet and greet on 8 April 2019 that she had been sexually assaulted by her colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Parliament House in the early hours of 23 March.
Lehrmann has denied raping Higgins and pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent. His criminal trial was abandoned due to juror misconduct and a second trial did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health.
Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson for defamation over an interview with Higgins broadcast on The Project in 2021 which did not name him but alleged she had been raped by a Liberal staffer.
Cripps told the court she had more than 100 contacts with Higgins, including in-person sessions, and by phone, text and email in 2019 and 2020.
“Each time I saw her it was about her distress: wanting two different things and they weren’t congruent,” Cripps said.
“She said she’d only been in the ACT for six months. She came for this, what she called – and I quote you as it stands out in my memory because it was unusual in counselling – she called it her ‘dream job’.”
Cripps detailed the day she first met Higgins at the Winchester police centre in Belconnen, on 8 April, and “supported her” while she talked to detective senior constable Sarah Harman.
“I was observing Brittany,” Cripps said of the two-hour meeting. “So there was a lot of distress on her behalf. She was very tearful but she tried very hard to remain composed, very hard.”
The court heard that on 13 April, Higgins wrote to Harman to say she would not be continuing with the complaint.
Harman said she was not surprised when she received the email because Higgins was worried about what she called the “replaceable nature of her employment”, as well as the upcoming election, which had been called on 11 April.
Harman said Higgins believed Lehrmann was “well connected”, while she was “replaceable”.
“It was a theme I recall from throughout that conversation: the replaceable nature of her employment and the upcoming election,” Harman said.
Harman said the investigation of the CCTV footage from Parliament House did continue but it was “incredibly frustrating” how much “push back” she received from officials about accessing the CCTV.
“It was frustrating … I never encountered such pushback on obtaining CCTV, and it was incredibly frustrating for me.”
In October 2019 Harman was asked by the Australian federal police to contact Higgins about the possibility of a media inquiry about the alleged rape being raised at Senate estimates.
Harman said Higgins was “hysterical” when given the news and asked how the media had found out. She said she was so upset she was “very difficult to understand”.
“Obviously I had concerns about her welfare during that call because she was hysterical,” Harman said. “I didn’t quite expect that reaction from her.”
At the end of the day after two hours of legal argument, Justice Michael Lee ruled that a report by a UK-based lip reading expert was admissible.
“This is not an expert opinion of great complexity,” Lee said. “It involves someone with specialised knowledge looking intently at a video.”
Earlier in the trial Network Ten’s barrister, Matt Collins KC, played extensive CCTV footage which showed Higgins and Lehrmann socialising and drinking.
Collins suggested to Lehrmann that at one point at the Dock he moved three drinks closer to Higgins on the table and said they were “all hers, all hers”.
Lehrmann replied: “No, I disagree with that.”
On Friday Lee said Lehrmann has already “rejected propositions” put to him in cross-examination based on the opinions of the lipreader.
The trial will continue on Monday.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
