Former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown defied two Coalition ministers’ orders to report an incident involving Brittany Higgins to police in 2019 because she believed Higgins needed control over the situation, the federal court has heard.
Brown agreed with a suggestion by defence barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, for Lisa Wilkinson, that Senator Linda Reynolds and special minister of state, Alex Hawke, were “covering themselves”, or protecting themselves, by instructing her to make a police report.
Wilkinson and Ten are co-respondents in a defamation trial brought by Bruce Lehrmann who says he was defamed by a rape allegation made by Higgins on Ten’s The Project. Lehrmann was not named but says he was identifiable.
Lehrmann has denied raping Higgins in March 2019 and pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent. His criminal trial was abandoned due to juror misconduct and the second did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health.
Brown explained on Tuesday that she did not report the alleged crime to the authorities because she did not want to take “agency” away from Higgins.
Brown also maintained during several meetings she had with Higgins in the week after the alleged rape, Higgins did not tell her she had been assaulted, only that she had a recollection that “he was on top of me”.
“She never told us,” Brown said. “She never told me she’d been assaulted.”
Justice Michael Lee interjected: “You had your third meeting with Ms Higgins. You knew the information previously had been vague to you. Young people intoxicated, coming back … to an office, drinking whisky, someone ended up naked. You also know by the end of the third meeting that … Ms Higgins has said to you: ‘I remember him being on top of me’.
“Did you have a view one way or another as to whether or not it was likely, let’s leave aside the question of consent … [they] had been engaged in some sort of sexual activity?”
Brown replied: “It was possible.”
Brown said when Higgins disclosed that “he was on top of me” she was blind-sided and Higgins did not say it was assault.
“She said out of the blue that she remembered he was on top of me,” Brown said.
“I didn’t understand … that’s why I asked: ‘Did something happen you didn’t want to happen?’.”
Chrysanthou suggested she gave Higgins a sexual assault brochure because she told her she was assaulted.
“She did not disclose that to me,” Brown said.
Brown denied that Higgins’ employment was ever threatened by the incident and denied that she told Higgins if she went to the Gold Coast to be close to family she could never come back.
Brown was asked by Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC if she had heard allegations of a cover-up for “political expediency” of the alleged rape.
“There was none, absolutely none,” Brown said. “These were two 23-year-olds and there was no cover-up. The police were consulted, the department of finance was consulted, the DPS [department of parliamentary services] knew. There was no cover-up.’’
UK-based forensic lipreader Tim Reedy was the final witness to give evidence. Despite the objections to his expert report raised by Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC Lee accepted it into evidence.
“I accept that lip-reading is not an exact science but the guide for the admissibility of expert evidence is not a counsel of perfection,” Lee said. “One has to take areas of specialised knowledge as one finds them.”
In a note on his report Reedy had written: “Man is lining up drinks, plying the woman with alcohol.”
Reedy, who flew from the UK to give evidence, said he spent three days studying the CCTV footage from the bar in Canberra where Lehrmann and Higgins were the night of the alleged rape.
His experience includes lip-reading the coronation of King Charles for the Sunday Times. He added that the newspaper “likes a bit of gossip”.
“I should make it clear I have never been cross-examined before but I have helped police and investigations,” he said.
Using a “lip speaker’ as an interpreter, Reedy told the court he said he believed Higgins was being “plied with alcohol” because he saw a segment of the CCTV in which Lehrmann lined up drinks for her on the corner of the table. Whybrow quoted Reedy’s report, in which he claimed Lehrmann said “drink that all now”. Higgins, according to Reedy’s report, said “I don’t want to”.
Reedy said the CCTV showed that everyone was having fun at the bar but “what stuck out” for him was that Higgins was being plied with drinks.
The court will hear closing submissions on Thursday and Friday.
