Linda Reynolds suing Commonwealth and its lawyers over Brittany Higgins’ $2.4m payout
Senator Linda Reynolds has launched legal action over the Commonwealth’s decision to give Brittany Higgins a $2.4m payout, saying it politicised ‘untested, unsubstantiated and untrue allegations against me’.
NSW
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Senator Linda Reynolds has launched legal action over a $2.4m payout given to her ex-employee Brittany Higgins, with the former defence minister suing the federal government and a legal firm involved in the settlement.
The Senator claimed the multimillion-dollar payout given to Ms Higgins over her alleged rape in parliament, and the subsequent handling of it by the former government, “sent a message to the nation” the allegations regarding Ms Reynolds were true.
The settlement was reached between Ms Higgins and the government after a one-day mediation, in which Ms Reynolds was not involved.
Ms Reynolds said her absence did not give her the opportunity to dispute contested allegations from Ms Higgins, including that her former employer failed to properly support her in the wake of the alleged sexual assault.
“Ms Higgins’ allegations concerning me were entirely defensible, but in settling the claim against me it sent a message to the nation that those allegations were so true, so damning, so abhorrent that the Commonwealth was prepared to pay her $2.445 million after only a single instance of mediation, in a single day for proceedings not yet filed and quite possibly statute barred,” Ms Reynolds said.
She accused Labor ministers and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus of being “staunch public supporters of Ms Higgins” who politicised “untested, unsubstantiated and untrue allegations against me”.
“The proceedings commenced by me this week have been long foreshadowed and concern the egregious conduct of the Attorney-General and the Commonwealth’s lawyers in taking over my defence of Ms Higgins’ claim without my consent,” Ms Reynolds said in her statement.
She added the Commonwealth had erred in “failing to take any instructions from me, failing to test Ms Higgins’ allegations, denying me an opportunity to attend the mediation, denying me an ability to retain my own legal counsel, settling the claim on my behalf without my consent and failing to provide me with sufficient or accurate information about the terms of the settlement”.
The court case stems from Ms Higgins alleging in 2019 that she had been raped by a colleague, former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, in Parliament House after a night out.
A criminal trial regarding the alleged rape was abandoned after juror misconduct, with a re-trial cancelled over concerns for Ms Higgins’ welfare.
Mr Lehrmann also launched action in the Federal Court against Channel 10, claiming they had defamed him and destroyed his right to a “fair criminal trial” after airing an interview with Ms Higgins.
Mr Lehrmann subsequently lost the civil case, with Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court finding on the balance of probabilities that Ms Higgins had been raped by Mr Lehrmann.
Mr Lehrmann is currently appealing the finding and has always denied the rape allegations
Ms Reynolds referred the $2.4m payout to the National Anti-Corruption Commission last year.
Labor and the Commonwealth’s lawyers were contacted for comment.
Originally published as Linda Reynolds suing Commonwealth and its lawyers over Brittany Higgins’ $2.4m payout
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