Final day of Brittany Higgins defamation trial
Written by admin on September 4, 2024
Brittany Higgins has been called arrogant for suggesting she was the person most affected by her rape allegation.
The claim was made during the closing statement of senator Linda Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett to the WA Supreme Court on Tuesday in the final week of the blockbuster defamation trial.
Mr Bennett told the court the hurt suffered by Senator Reynolds and her chief of staff Fiona Brown was not from public scrutiny about their conduct.
He said it was from the deliberate defamatory conduct of Ms Higgins on The Project interview and in news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden’s article.
Senator Reynolds is suing Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz over a number of social media posts the pair made 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.
Mr Lehrmann lost a subsequent civil defamation case in April this year when the Federal Court determined, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins at Parliament House.
The senator’s lawyer told the court the concerned conduct of Ms Higgins occurred two years after the alleged rape when she Mr Sharaz orchestrated a plan to attack the senator.
Mr Bennett argued that in May 2020 the development of a plan hatched by Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz started to emerge and that Ms Higgins had lied during media interviews at the expense of Senator Reynolds’ physical and mental health.
He said aggressive questioning the senator faced in parliament by Labor senators about her handling of the allegations was part of the pair’s plan.
The court was also told communications with journalists and hours-long interviews Ms Higgins gave to media deliberately attacked the senator.
He said never once in interviews with the Project and Ms Maiden did Ms Higgins talk about improving the parliamentary workplace, which was a reason she gave for speaking up, but mentioned Senator Reynolds and Ms Brown more than 100 times.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ms Higgins’ defence lawyer Rachael Young completed her closing argument saying the whole action should be dismissed.
She argued her client found agency when she spoke up in 2021 and finally got to speak her truth and that it was important for Ms Higgins to speak up so what happened to her would not happen to anyone else.
The trial enters its final day on Wednesday, with Mr Bennett expected to complete his closing statement.
