Decision looms on Higgins’ medical records

A decision is expected to be made today on whether Brittany Higgins’ medical records will be provided to the WA Supreme Court as evidence during Senator Linda Reynolds’ defamation case against her.

The senator’s lawyers want to subpoena records from a doctor who saw Ms Higgins around the time she settled her personal injury claim with the Commonwealth.

However Ms Higgins’ lawyers have opposed the application, arguing it was not relevant to the case.

The senator is suing Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz over social media posts she and her husband shared in 2022 and 2023.

The posts were critical of Senator Reynolds’ handling of Ms Higgins’ allegation she was raped in Parliament House in 2019 by her then-colleague Mr Lehrmann.

He was charged with rape and faced trial in 2022, but the trial was aborted due to juror misconduct.

The charge was dropped and Mr Lehrmann continues to maintain his innocence.

‘I WAS STITCHED UP’: REYNOLDS

The senator faced intense questioning from Ms Higgins’ defence lawyer, Rachel Young SC, over information she leaked to a journalist.

Senator Reynolds told the court on Thursday she thought Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus had “stitched her up” by acting “corruptly” in regards to how Ms Higgins’ compansation claim against the government was handled.

The senator said she was incredibly angry with the Attorney-General for locking her out of mediation talks between the Commonwealth and Brittany Higgins.

She said it had denied her an opportunity to defend allegations made by Ms Higgins that she had mishandled her rape allegation, which she thought could have been easily defended.

The mediation was to settle Ms Higgins’ personal injury claim involving her rape allegation, that included the way it had been mishandled by her employer.

The court was shown several emails the senator had sent The Australian journalist Janet Albrechtsen from her personal Gmail account.

One email contained confidential information about Ms Higgins’ claim, others pointed to information about Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz, and referred to the senator’s allegation of corruption.

Senator Reynolds said she was never upset about a settlement amount or Ms Higgins initiating the claim, but with how the Commonwealth dealt with it.

“I believe the Attorney-General manipulated the law to muzzle me, I saw it as government corruption,” she said.

“Everything in this article was about the process of how (the claim) was handled, it was not about Ms Higgins.

“It was about what the government did and the process they took, in my mind it was corrupt which is clearly what I said and what was expressed.

“It was not about Ms Higgins, I could not make that assessment – I was frozen out, I do not know what allegations about me were settled.

“It was about the allegations she made publicly, and in the draft, in my mind they were defendable allegations.

“I had numerous discussions with Ms Albrechtsen, it was not about the alleged rape, it was about the subsequent allegations about me and Ms Brown.”

The trial continues.