Brittany Higgins, a junior staffer of a Liberal minister, said she was raped by a colleague, Bruce Lehrmann in 2019.
The ACT legal system delivered no justice for her. Instead, it delivered farce — a prosecution of Lehrmann that collapsed over juror misconduct, before being abandoned, then an inquiry into the prosecution, which turned out to be tainted by the close contact between the inquiry head and a News Corp journalist. Higgins, along with her partner, ended up being sued by her former employer, Linda Reynolds, a case that is still ongoing.
In addition to receiving no justice from the ACT courts, and finding herself sucked into the vortex of litigation that the whole saga became, Higgins was the object of a relentless and brutal campaign to destroy her by right-wing media outlets News Corp and Seven, with the mimics at the Daily Mail happily photocopying along.
It was a vivid case of exemplary punishment — Higgins had embarrassed the Liberal party and then-prime minister Scott Morrison, derailing his political agenda by shifting the political focus to the standards of behaviour and the treatment of women in Parliament House. Higgins had to be punished — just like Lucy Wicks and Catherine Marriott, both also guilty of embarrassing Liberal and National Party figures.
Higgins’ private texts were leaked to right-wing media outlets and used to vilify her and peddle conspiracy theories about her. She was smeared by right-wing politicians, who claim she defrauded the Commonwealth. Lehrmann was paid extraordinary sums of money by the right-wing media, disguised as “accommodation costs”, to portray himself as an innocent victim of Higgins.
But Lehrmann raped her, according to Federal Court Judge Michael Lee. Far from being an innocent victim, Lehrmann is not merely a rapist but a serial liar and fabulist who lied to the court in his own defamation case — Lee, inter alia, specifically rejected his insistence he hadn’t handed any material from the ACT trial over to Seven.
Higgins’ central claim is now accepted. But it’s not the result of any criminal trial, or even of any action between Higgins and her rapist, but of a defamation case, initiated in a moment of Roberts-Smithian hubris by Lehrmann against Ten Network and one of its employees, Lisa Wilkinson. Higgins’ involvement in the trial was merely that of a witness for one side — something she volunteered to do.
Her vindication is thus purely collateral. Higgins couldn’t get justice or vindication from the Federal Police or the ACT courts; if Lehrmann hadn’t been so spectacularly stupid as to claim he was defamed, it would never have happened. And it only happened because the Ten Network — owned by multinational company Paramount — brought massive resources to the case to defend its journalism.
It was Ten’s barrister, Dr Matt Collins, who methodically destroyed Lehrmann’s credibility, repeatedly exposing his lies, inconsistencies and contradictions. Lehrmann was not just a rapist and a fabulist, he was a rotten liar whose fantasies could be forensically dissected by someone with the resources and experience to do so.
Having been a victim of both Bruce Lehrmann’s determination to have sex with her and his reckless indifference to her inability to consent (and the ACT court systems’ failures), Higgins was victimised all over again by the media and politicians, until finally another part of the system of power in Australia, with interests aligned with hers, was brought into the matter.
So, memo to sexual assault victims: if you want justice, try to have a multinational corporation that shares your interests in your corner. It’s unlikely you’ll get any justice from the police and public prosecutors. It’s superfluous to add that an overwhelming number of sexual assault victims are stuck with the latter, and are doomed to see their rapists either never prosecuted or walk free.
The campaign against Higgins hasn’t ended. The right-wing media are making much of the fact that Higgins’ claims of a government cover-up about her rape were rejected by Lee, and Ten’s lack of rigour in questioning those claims was criticised by the judge. The calls for Higgins and Labor to be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission over her compensation payment have been renewed — despite Higgins having been raped at work by a work colleague.
In fact there was a cover-up, but it was entirely outside of Lee’s purview. The cover-up was by Scott Morrison — whose office backgrounded against Higgins’ partner David Sharaz. Morrison initiated a review by Liberal hack and Prime Minister and Cabinet head Phil Gaetjens into who knew about Higgins’ rape. But the review was a stalling exercise, and Morrison blatantly lied to Parliament about it. By that time, Gaetjens had, very conveniently, put the inquiry on hold, allegedly because of advice from the Australian Federal Police — a claim the head of the AFP initially denied. Gaetjens hadn’t even spoken to Higgins herself before calling it quits. As cover-ups go, you don’t get much better — very few come with a clear Prime Ministerial misleading of Parliament.
None of that was relevant to the trial just concluded. But it’s worth noting as the right-wing campaign to punish Higgins continues, even after the truth has been confirmed. The woman was raped. But her rapist walks free.
Does the outcome of the Bruce Lehrmann case give hope to sexual assault victims? Or does it simply prove that they will always struggle to get justice? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
