Brittany Higgins’ lawyer has accused Senator Linda Reynolds of lacking basic human responses when she dealt with her former staffer's rape allegation, during a trial in the WA’s highest court.
Brittany Higgins’ lawyer has accused Senator Linda Reynolds of lacking basic human responses when she dealt with her former staffer's rape allegation, during a trial in the state’s highest court.
A defamation trial between Senator Reynolds and Ms Higgins had been ongoing in the Supreme Court of Western Australia with closing submissions starting today.
Senator Reynolds sued Ms Higgins over four social media posts she allegedly published last year, with the politician claiming they were defamatory of her.
Throughout the trial, Ms Higgins relied on her defence that her posts were substantially true.
Ms Higgins alleged she was raped in March 2019, by another Liberal party staffer in Senator Reynolds’ Canberra office.
In court, Ms Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young today said the senator did not check in on her employee after the pair had a meeting about the incident.
“She doesn’t ask Ms Higgins at all, ‘how are you going?’ in the aftermath,” she said.
“There’s not a conversation of that sort, rather there’s an assumption made by the senator not to go to Ms Higgins about it because she looked fine, she looked happy.
“There’s difference between respecting someone’s space and not doing anything at all
“The trauma experienced by rape victims, there’s no simplicity of that.
“It’s those basic human responses that we say are missing from this narrative.
“We say it’s substantially true that the senator engaged in questionable conduct.”
Ms Young told the court Senator Reynolds mishandled the situation including by inviting Ms Higgins to talk in her office, about what happened on the night of the alleged rape.
“It was clear in the [incident] report where Ms Higgins found undressed was in the senator’s office,” she said.
“Given the relatively small size of the room if there was any suspicion that the place where sexual activity occurred was in her office… the fact Senator Reynolds chose to have a chat with Ms Higgins in that room was inappropriate.”
In court, Ms Young said her client's social media posts were substantially true or fell within the fair comment defence.
Ms Young also told the court Ms Higgins' posts falls within the qualified privilege defence, being matters of political significance.
"Her [Higgins'] response [online] is consistent with her duty or interest to publish matter of government concern," she said.
Ms Higgins made her sexual assault allegations public through interviews with media outlets in 2021, including on Network 10’s The Project.
A criminal trial against former Liberal party employee Bruce Lehrmann over Ms Higgins’ allegations was launched but was aborted because of juror misconduct.
Mr Lehrmann continued to maintain his innocence, but a Federal Court judge found he had raped Ms Higgins, based on the civil threshold of the balance of probabilities.
The trial continues with Senator Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett scheduled to make his closing submissions tomorrow.
