Bruce Lehrmann had “no urgent work” justifying his early-morning visit to Parliament House on the night of Brittany Higgins’ alleged rape, and told his boss he was there to continue drinking, a court has heard.
The ACT supreme court heard this week from witnesses called by the prosecution, including Fiona Brown, chief of staff to the former defence industry minister Linda Reynolds; and Nikola Anderson, a parliament security guard, who told the court she found Higgins naked on a couch opposite the minister’s desk in the early hours of 23 March 2019.
Their evidence was temporarily suppressed until Higgins, who was unavailable for several days, concluded her cross-examination on Friday.
Brown told the court on Tuesday she had spoken to both Lehrmann and Higgins in the wake of their 1.45am visit to Parliament House after a night of drinking at Canberra bars.
When they arrived at the building, Lehrmann told parliament security that he was there to pick up some documents, the court has heard. He later told police he had needed to go back to parliament to pick up his keys and to work on some question time briefs for Reynolds, and thought he was being a “gentleman” by offering to share an Uber with Higgins, who he said had needed to do her own, unspecified work.
But Brown told the court there was “no urgent work” justifying the after-hours visit, which she characterised as a security breach.
“The [department of parliamentary services] report said that they said they were there for urgent work purposes,” she told the court on Tuesday. “There was no urgent work purpose.”
Brown said she met Lehrmann and questioned him about the reason for the visit in days that followed.
“He didn’t agree that he was inebriated,” she said. “He said that he came back to the office to drink some whisky and I questioned that and said, ‘that seems a bit unusual to me, who comes back to the office to drink whisky?’ He said ‘people do it all the time’ and I said ‘it’s not something I’ve ever heard of.’”
Reg Chamberlain, then chief of staff to then special minister of state, Alex Hawke, was also in the meeting.
“When we asked what his purpose was, he said it was to have whisky, to drink whisky,” Chamberlain told the court.
Asked whether Lehrmann had said in the meeting that he was at parliament for work, Chamberlain said: “No, he just said the purpose was to drink.”
Lehrmann told police in his interview he did not drink anything at parliament and had no access to alcohol there, because there was none in the minister’s office suite.
Nicole Hamer, a fellow staffer, later gave evidence that Lehrmann had previously possessed “quite a substantial amount of alcohol” at his desk in the office when Reynolds was assistant home affairs minister.
Brown also gave evidence about a series of meetings with Higgins after the incident. In the first meeting, Brown said Higgins had said only that she was “responsible for what she drank and her actions”.
At a second meeting, on 28 March 2019, Brown said she asked again if Higgins was OK. Higgins initially said that she was, but then as she was leaving the room, she stopped halfway to the door, Brown told the court.
“She turned around and she says ‘I remember him on top of me.’”
Brown said she replied: “Are you OK? Has something happened that you didn’t want to have happened?”
She said Higgins was silent, and then just shook her head.
Brown then met Higgins again, this time in Reynolds’ office with the minister present, on 1 April. Brown denied any suggestion that Higgins was pressured not to go forward with a police complaint.
She said Reynolds offered Higgins her full support.
“[Higgins] was concerned about how this might impact her career, and Senator Reynolds said there would be no impact to her career, and that she’d have powerful support.”
Under cross-examination, Brown became emotional when shown a text message she received from Higgins saying she could not “overstate how much I valued your support and advice throughout this period”.
Brown denied she had suggested to Higgins she could lose her job if she did not go to Western Australia with Reynolds after the alleged rape.
Anderson, the security guard, gave evidence that she had found Higgins naked on the couch in Reynolds’ office on the morning of 23 March.
She said her colleague had noticed Lehrmann leaving by himself in a hurry.
“My colleague had said to me that Mr Lehrmann had left about 20 minutes after I had let him into the suite,” she said. “He seemed to be in a hurry to get out, he sort of threw the pass at my colleague, and when my colleague said ‘that was quick, are you finished?’ his response was ‘yeah’ and [he] hurriedly, quickly left.”
The guard who was at the security point as Lehrmann left, Mark Fairweather, said he had wanted to talk to the accused before he left the building.
“I wanted to ask him about the lady,” he said. “I said ‘are you coming back?’ He just replied hastily ‘no’ and flicked the pass onto the desk. Before I could ask him anything more, he had left.”
The security team became concerned and asked Anderson to check on Higgins. She said she walked into Reynolds’ office, waking Higgins in the process.
She said Higgins was “completely naked” and her dress was lying next to her on the floor.
“She’s opened her eyes, she’s looked at me and she’s proceeded to roll over into the foetal position, facing the desk,” Anderson told the court.
“I then proceeded to walk out the door, close the door, walk out of the suite completely and call my team leader to advise him what I had seen.”
The trial continues before the ACT supreme court chief justice, Lucy McCallum.
