The Project meeting that had Brittany Higgins in tears and put Linda Reynolds in the spotlight

Three years ago, a 26-year-old media adviser to a federal Liberal minister took a day off work, flew from Canberra to Sydney, and told two senior journalists that she had been raped by a colleague in Parliament House – but that she was not the real story.

Brittany Higgins, a former adviser to then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds who was working in the office of Senator Michaelia Cash, then employment minister, confided tearfully in journalist Lisa Wilkinson, co-host of Ten’s The Project, and producer Angus Llewellyn that she knew she would be “forever be tied to this story” but “it’s not about me, broadly”.

“It’s pretty much always going to be about the [Liberal] Party, and it will be about Linda, and ... that’s fine, but it’s just sort of hard to reconcile personally that you’re the least interesting part of your story,” she said during the recorded meeting at The Darling Hotel at Pyrmont’s Star casino on January 27, 2021.

The very public disintegration in the relationship between Reynolds and her former staffer has spawned one of the ugliest court fights in a welter of litigation relating to Higgins’ allegations.

The WA Supreme Court trial of Reynolds’ defamation case against Higgins started on August 2 and is slated to run for five weeks. It is set against the backdrop of Federal Court Justice Michael Lee’s landmark decision this year, which found on the balance of probabilities that Bruce Lehrmann, then a Reynolds adviser, raped an intoxicated Higgins in Reynolds’ office in March 2019.

Lee dismissed Lehrmann’s defamation suit against Ten and Wilkinson for airing Higgins’ rape claim on The Project in February 2021. Lehrmann has launched an appeal and still maintains his innocence.

Reynolds’ fight is deeply personal. She is not suing directly over the Ten interview but over a handful of social media posts by Higgins that she claims convey false and defamatory meanings, including that she “mishandled [Higgins’] rape allegation by failing to provide her with any support” and engaged in a public campaign of harassment against her.

Higgins is seeking to rely chiefly on a defence of truth, as well as qualified privilege – a defence related to publications of public interest where a defendant has acted reasonably – and fair comment. Her lawyers say that if any damage was suffered by Reynolds, it occurred in 2021, after The Project interview aired, and not because of later social media posts. But Reynolds’ team argue Higgins and her now-husband, David Sharaz, use social media posts as “carefully curated press releases”.

In a new claim added this year, Reynolds is also seeking to prove Higgins and Sharaz “agreed on a common design for the sole or dominant purpose of causing injury” to her, including by orchestrating the interview on The Project and feeding questions to Labor politicians targeting her in parliament, and that this amounted to the tort of conspiracy. This is a rarely used civil claim and is likely to be difficult to establish.

Higgins denies those allegations and says this claim is barred because it was brought after a limitation period that expired in March.

Sharaz is not defending a separate defamation claim brought by Reynolds against him.

Reynolds has already received a measure of vindication. In his decision on April 15, Lee gave no credence to the suggestion in the Ten broadcast that Higgins was forced to choose between her career and pursuing justice, and rejected what he described as a political cover-up narrative.

Higgins said she did not agree with all of Lee’s findings, but she did “respect his observations about the many people scarred and damaged in the aftermath of my rape”.

“Senator Reynolds and [her former chief of staff] Fiona Brown have also been hurt and for that I am also sorry,” she said. “My perceptions and feelings about what happened ... are different from theirs. I deeply regret we have not yet found common ground.”

Reynolds returned serve in a statement that said, in part: “What still lies between us are not different perceptions. It is a fact that Ms Higgins received our support and that there was no cover-up.

“If Ms Higgins does not accept Justice Lee’s findings on the claims of cover-up and mistreatment then, regrettably, it will have to be proved again in our trial.”

As litigation is apt to do, the trial has exposed aspects of Reynolds’ conduct she’d likely rather stayed secret, including “catty” texts the WA senator sent about her former staffer’s wardrobe and confidential documents she leaked to The Australian about Higgins’ $2.4 million Commonwealth settlement.

The meeting

The feud between Higgins, now pregnant with her first child, and her former boss is punctuated with a series of flashpoints, including a meeting between Higgins, Reynolds and Brown in the minister’s office on Monday, April 1, 2019.

Brown suggested Higgins’ father, who was visiting Canberra, was welcome to attend.

By this time, Reynolds and Brown knew Higgins had been found naked on the couch in Reynolds’ office by a Parliament House security guard about 4.15am on Saturday, March 23, and that Higgins later told Brown she remembered Lehrmann “being on top of me”.

It was enough to raise questions about a potential assault: Brown told Lehrmann’s defamation trial that she was pressured by Reynolds to make a police report on March 29. Brown resisted this. She gave evidence in the Federal Court that she did not believe an explicit allegation of sexual assault had been made, and it had to be Higgins’ decision to proceed.

Lehrmann had been asked to pack up his things on March 26 and his role was formally terminated on April 5 for accessing the office after hours.

Higgins has since recounted her distress at being seated during the April 1 meeting metres from the couch on which she alleged Lehrmann raped her. Later that day, Brown took Higgins to speak to internal Australian Federal Police officers at Parliament House, where Higgins made a clear sexual assault allegation. Brown did not attend that meeting.

The matter was referred to the external ACT Policing, but by April 13 Higgins had decided not to proceed. She flew to Perth to work on Reynolds’ federal election campaign.

The dinner

Before returning to Canberra after the May 19 election, Higgins attended a birthday dinner for Reynolds with staffers. She was photographed sitting next to the minister.

She texted then-boyfriend Ben Dillaway that she had a “solid chat” with Reynolds.

But she would tell Wilkinson and Llewellyn during their first meeting that Reynolds “hated” her by this point and kept her “at arm’s length”.

Linda Reynolds and Brittany Higgins at the dinner in Perth on May 15, 2019.

The email

Sharaz, who started dating Higgins in May 2020, emailed Wilkinson in early 2021 and said he had “a sensitive story surrounding a sexual assault at Parliament House; a woman who was pressured by the Liberal Party and female cabinet minister not to pursue it”.

Days later, Higgins and Sharaz met for the first time with Wilkinson and Llewellyn.

The Darling Hotel at Sydney’s Star casino, where Higgins and Sharaz met The Project team.Credit: Janie Barrett

Sharaz told the group: “I said to Britt, ultimately, what do you want out of this. She goes, well, I want Bruce to forever have it difficult getting a job, like it’s going to be difficult for me.”

“Yeah,” Wilkinson replied.

“And then you said, best-case scenario, Linda Reynolds,” Sharaz said, apparently addressing Higgins.

The interview

Higgins said in her interview on The Project, aired on February 15, 2021, that she felt she became a “political issue” and Reynolds “did ... try and avoid me”. Asked why she decided not to pursue a police complaint in 2019, Higgins said she “didn’t feel like she had a choice” and “I realised my job was on the line”.

Higgins renewed her complaint in 2021 and was interviewed by police on February 24.

Reynolds was pursued by Labor about her handling of the rape allegation. She was admitted to hospital as a precautionary measure later in February and took medical leave on the advice of her cardiologist.

Higgins’ complaint

The following month, Reynolds settled a defamation complaint brought against her by Higgins for telling staff that Higgins was a “lying cow”. Reynolds, who insisted her comment was not about the rape allegation, apologised. Higgins donated the settlement to a rape crisis centre.

On August 7, 2021, Lehrmann was charged with sexual assault.

The Sharaz tweet

In January 2022, Sharaz posted a screenshot on Twitter, now X, of a page on Reynolds’ website entitled “Empowering Women” and wrote: “There is a very real chance @lindareynoldswa will be called to court this year to answer questions on her involvement in Brittany Higgins feeling pressured by her office not to continue with a complaint to police.”

Reynolds alleges Higgins, who replied to the tweet, was a publisher of the post and that it branded Reynolds a hypocrite. Higgins’ defence denies the claims and says Reynolds cannot sue over this tweet because a one-year limitation period has expired.

The criminal trial

Lehrmann’s ACT Supreme Court criminal trial started and was aborted within weeks in October 2022 due to juror misconduct. The charge was later dropped owing to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.

Lehrmann’s barrister, Steven Whybrow, SC, texted Reynolds pre-trial after asking for some contact details and said, “hang in there … karma comes to those that wait”. Reynolds responded with, “all good my end” and a prayer emoji.

Reynolds told the WA court she used the emoji to mean thank you and was responding to his concern for her wellbeing.

She has conceded texts she sent Whybrow suggesting Higgins was trying to imitate the fashion of Catherine, Princess of Wales, were “a little catty”, but were made in the context of her annoyance that Higgins wore the senator’s Carla Zampatti jacket when she left Parliament House after the rape.

“Ms Higgins had a predilection for expensive clothes, including my jacket,” Reynolds said in her evidence.

Higgins has said the jacket was in a “goodwill box” for charity, while Reynolds says there was no such box.

The payout

After the aborted criminal trial, Higgins settled a civil claim against the Commonwealth for $2.4 million. Higgins has said she received about $1.9 million after legal fees and taxes.

The WA court heard Reynolds leaked confidential legal documents about the settlement to The Australian, which formed the basis of articles alleging the Albanese government had “muzzled” Reynolds by excluding her from the mediation.

“I was incredibly angry,” Reynolds told the court. She felt Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was “stitching me up” by not allowing her to respond to Higgins’ claims about her treatment by her boss.

The settlement was made on a no-admissions basis.

Reynolds’ claim

After Reynolds suggested she would ask the National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate Higgins’ payout, Higgins posted an Instagram story on July 4 last year referring to media reports and said Reynolds “continues to harass me through the media and in the Parliament”.

Reynolds launched defamation proceedings over the story. Her claim includes a subsequent July 20 Instagram story, reproduced on X and Threads, and the Sharaz tweet. Reynolds refers to other posts by Higgins in support of her claim for aggravated damages.

The Spotlight interview

The following month, Reynolds appeared on Seven’s Spotlight program. She said she was “floored” when she realised Higgins had worn the same white dress that she said she was wearing on the night she claimed she was raped “just a handful of weeks afterwards” at Reynolds’ birthday dinner.

Reynolds also agreed that the process surrounding Higgins’ payout “stinks”.

Former defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.Credit: Channel 7

Reynolds has insisted she has never questioned Higgins’ rape claim, but is suing the 29-year-old for claiming the senator mishandled the allegation and harassed her, engaged in “questionable conduct” during Lehrmann’s criminal trial, and wants to silence sexual assault victims.

Both have a lot to lose. Reynolds has mortgaged her house to pay for the case. Higgins has said she will have to sell her house in France, paid for with her Commonwealth settlement.

Lee said there were “no real winners” in the Lehrmann litigation. His observation lingers.

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