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Brittany Higgins has confronted the man accused of raping her, pointing at him across a courtroom and telling him "nothing was fine after what you did to me".
The former Liberal Party staffer returned to the witness stand in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday, directing the comment at Bruce Lehrmann while fielding questions from his counsel.
Lehrmann, 27, is on trial, having pleaded not guilty to a charge of engaging in sexual intercourse without consent.
He denies any sexual activity with Ms Higgins at Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019, when he is accused of raping her on a couch in the office of their boss at the time, Senator Linda Reynolds, after what has been described as "a drunken night out".
After being unavailable to continue giving evidence for a week, Ms Higgins came back to court on Friday to continue being cross-examined by defence barrister Steven Whybrow.
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Mr Whybrow pressed Ms Higgins on her responses to the alleged rape in the week that followed it, asking about her interactions with Lehrmann and others at work.
Ms Higgins replied that she had been "just trying to hold on", telling Mr Whybrow she had been "really scared" because Lehrmann held a more senior position than her.
She added that she had been "compartmentalising my trauma" and "pretending everything was fine" because she cared about her job "more than anything in the world, which is f---ed up".
"Nothing was fine," Ms Higgins said, looking past Mr Whybrow at Lehrmann and pointing.
"Nothing was fine after what you did to me. Nothing."
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Mr Whybrow subsequently revisited the issue of Ms Higgins having not followed through on plans to see a doctor in the wake of the alleged rape.
The defence barrister suggested last week that the reason for this was that the alleged sexual assault had not taken place, and Ms Higgins again rejected the claim on Friday.
"Confronting it with professionals was a really big f---ing deal to me," Ms Higgins said, reiterating previous comments about being barely able to function after the alleged rape.
"I wasn't perfect."
More to come.
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