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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Amanda Meade

Coalition ministers ‘covering themselves’ by ordering Brittany Higgins incident be reported to police, court hears

Fiona Brown
Former political staffer Fiona Brown told Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation trial in the federal court that Brittany Higgins ‘never told me she’d been assaulted’ Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown defied two Coalition ministers’ orders to report an incident involving Brittany Higgins to police in 2019 because she believed Higgins needed control over the situation, the federal court has heard.

Brown agreed with a suggestion by defence barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, for Lisa Wilkinson, that Senator Linda Reynolds and special minister of state, Alex Hawke, were “covering themselves”, or protecting themselves, by instructing her to make a police report.

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