The latest chapter in the various legal cases associated with Brittany Higgins’ allegations of rape against Bruce Lehrmann in 2021 has come to a close, with the WA Supreme Court hearing closing arguments in WA Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds’ defamation suit against her former staffer Higgins.
It comes after Justice Michael Lee’s decision earlier this year in Lehrmann’s defamation claim against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. Lee found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann, then a colleague of Higgins, raped her while she was intoxicated on a lounge in Reynolds’ parliamentary office in March 2019. Lehrmann has maintained his innocence of the allegations and has launched an appeal.
What’s different about this case?
Reynolds is not suing over any of the interviews Higgins gave in 2021. She is suing over a series of social media posts made by Higgins and her partner David Sharaz in 2022 and 2023, which Reynolds claims defame her by implying she mishandled Higgins’ rape allegations by failing to provide her with support, and that she had engaged in a public campaign against her.
The social media posts, made on Instagram and Twitter, were quickly deleted, but Reynolds claims Higgins and Sharaz used social media to publish “carefully curated press releases”.
Reynolds had initially sued Sharaz regarding social media posts he published. Several months later the senator then launched an almost identical suit against Higgins (so much so that the matters would be heard together).
In April this year, Sharaz announced he was dropping his defence in his matter owing to the costs involved. Despite Sharaz’ defence being dropped, he is still substantially involved in the case against Higgins. Reynolds’ lawyers argue Higgins was a “joint publisher” on social media posts initially attributed only to Sharaz.
The timeline effectively begins from the point of the alleged rape. And while the matter concerns many of the same parties (indeed, many of the same people were called upon as witnesses or were parties in Bruce Lehrmann’s initial defamation suit), it does not concern the matter of whether Higgins was raped, but instead the actions of those involved in the aftermath of the alleged rape.
Higgins has relied on defences of truth, qualified privilege and fair comment.
Reynolds comes to the case having had a relatively positive characterisation of her account from Justice Michael Lee in the initial case, who found that a narrative of a cover-up was “objectively short on facts, but long on speculation and internal inconsistencies”. He also found Reynolds’ chief of staff Fiona Brown had acted with “commonsense and compassion”.
The case has heard from several notable witnesses, including former prime minister Scott Morrison (during whose term Higgins was allegedly raped) and WA Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash (for whom Higgins worked after leaving Reynolds’ office).
Journalists Samantha Maiden and Lisa Wilkinson, as well as Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, have been issued subpoenas to provide evidence. However, Higgins herself did not testify, with her lawyers believing they can win the case without her testimony. Documents in relation to her health have also been tendered in court — Higgins is pregnant and would have to fly from France to Perth to testify in person.
What have we learned about Linda Reynolds?
On Senator Reynolds’ conduct, the case has unearthed — as defamation litigation tends to — information that no doubt she would have preferred to stay private.
Reynolds has admitted to making “catty” remarks about Higgins with regards to her attire on the night she was allegedly raped, and compared her to the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton.
The trial has also revealed the senator repeatedly leaked confidential correspondence about Higgins’ $2.4 million Commonwealth compensation payout to The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen, three days before Albrechtsen proceeded to author an exclusive article titled “Linda Reynolds muzzled in Brittany Higgins lawsuit defence”.
Reynolds told the court she chose Albrechtsen because she considered her “fair and balanced”, admitting she was “incredibly angry [that] the attorney-general was stitching me up … I wanted her to know and the Australian public to know”.
“I believe the attorney-general manipulated the law to muzzle me, I saw it as government corruption,” Reynolds said.
What case are the lawyers making?
This week in closing arguments in the defamation trial, Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett said “every fairytale needs a villain”, arguing Higgins and Sharaz had chosen Reynolds to play that part.
Bennett said Higgins had created a “fictional story involving allegations of a political cover-up”.
Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young SC said Higgins’ alleged rape had “never been a fairytale”. She said Reynolds had tried to characterise Higgins’ motives as “sinister” and “gratuitous”, having had a “dogged focus” on events in 2021 and 2022 rather than the social media posts of 2023 she was suing in respect of.
Young said Reynolds failed to provide a “basic human response” to Higgins. Text messages tendered in court revealed Higgins had said: “I was literally assaulted in [Reynolds’] office and I collectively maybe took 4 days off / was offered jack shit in terms of help.”
Are we done yet?
As the defamation trial was coming to a close, Reynolds launched a separate lawsuit against Higgins and the entity managing the trust set up to manage her compensation payout, which was established a day after the Commonwealth settlement was finalised.
Reynolds claims Higgins retired as trustee and gave control to a company called Power Blazers Pty Ltd in an alleged attempt to defeat any potential creditors who may pursue her, claiming she is one of those creditors. Higgins, along with her father and her friend Emma Webster, are listed as directors of Power Blazers Pty Ltd, with Higgins and her father splitting shareholding in the company.
Reynolds has said she has been forced to mortgage her home to cover her legal fees, while Higgins has said she would have to sell her home in France (purchased following the Commonwealth compensation payout) in order to defend the case.
The matter is expected to conclude by Wednesday, after which Justice Paul Tottle will retire to deliver a verdict.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Bruce Lehrmann was found to have not been defamed by Network Ten’s reporting. The judge in fact ruled that Lehrmann had been defamed, but that a defence of truth applied.
