The second day of closing arguments in the defamation trial against Brittany Higgins brought by the ex-defence minister and her former boss Linda Reynolds was due to begin in Perth on Tuesday.
Reynolds sued Higgins over a series of social media posts published in July 2023, which the Liberal senator alleged had damaged her reputation. But Higgins has claimed a defence of truth, saying Reynolds mishandled her rape allegation – which was made public in 2021 – and did not properly support her.
On Monday, Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, said the Liberal senator’s “dogged focus” on events in 2021 and 2022 during the trial demonstrated her focus was not on the three social media posts in 2023 that she is suing for damages over.
Young said the “harm and hurt” Reynolds experienced for the 2023 social media posts was small or nonexistent because, by that point, her reputation had already been “baked in”.
The defence also said Reynolds’ failure to do a welfare check on Higgins after they had a meeting about her rape allegation was an example of how she mishandled the incident.
“It’s those basic human responses we say are missing from this narrative,” Young said.
Higgins’ defence argued Reynolds was an “unreliable” witness and that much of her time on the witness stand was “problematic” and “self-serving”.
Young said Reynolds was “eager to argue her case” rather than answer simple questions.
“She was attempting to be more of an advocate rather than a witness giving evidence in her case,” Young said.
Young also said it was Reynolds that engaged in “persistent” harassment against Higgins. Young said this was demonstrated by three key moments: Reynolds called Higgins a “lying cow” after the allegations became public; the senator “repeatedly” backgrounded a columnist at The Australian with confidential documents about Higgins’ commonwealth settlement; and her correspondence with Bruce Lehrmann’s then barrister Steven Whybrow during the 2022 criminal trial in the ACT gave an impression of partisanship.
Witness evidence over the weeks has dealt with the alleged harm Reynolds faced by the posts but has also spanned other events across the five-year period after Higgins alleged she had been raped by her colleague Lehrmann in the then defence minister’s office in Parliament House in 2019.
Lehrmann denies raping Higgins and his criminal trial was derailed by juror misconduct. As part of Lehrmann’s failed defamation trial against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, a federal court in April found that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Higgins. Lehrmann has appealed against that finding.
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Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, opened the trial by saying that “every fairytale needs a villain” and claiming that Higgins and Sharaz had cast the Liberal senator in that role.
Bennett also alleged the two had schemed to ambush the Western Australian senator as part of a sophisticated media plan.
He said Higgins had created a “fictional story of political cover-up”, detailing ill-treatment, ostracisation and bullying by Reynolds, but “none of it was true”.
But Young responded in opening arguments that the series of events had “never been a fairytale” for Higgins, and that those comments were “misplaced, harassing and re-traumatising”.
Young told the court the defence case would demonstrate that Reynolds was aware of Higgins’ alleged rape before 1 April 2019, when Higgins and Reynolds held their only meeting on the matter – a claim Reynolds has strongly denied.
The hearing was expected to begin at 9.30am Perth time on Tuesday, starting with the remainder of the defence’s closing arguments.
Bennett was then expected to begin his closing arguments. It is expected the trial before Justice Paul Tottle will conclude on Wednesday.
