Moment Brittany Higgins faced Bruce Lehrmann for the first time in court

Brittany Higgins has come face to face with Bruce Lehrmann for the first time in a Canberra courtroom.

Brittany Higgins has come face to face with the man she alleges raped her inside of Parliament House, telling the court Bruce Lehrmann tried to kiss her in the weeks before.

Mr Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse with Ms Higgins, without her consent, and being reckless to her consent, in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

After appearing via videolink from a separate room inside the ACT Supreme Court earlier in the day, Ms Higgins sat down at the witness box for the first time on Wednesday afternoon.

She told the court the team had been drinking together on a Wednesday after a sitting day at parliament, when he made a pass at her.

“I was trying to leave. He was also trying to leave. At that point he made an approach at me and tried to kiss me,” Ms Higgins said.

“I rebuffed, mostly out of shock. I wasn’t anticipating it. At that point he left … I think he was kind of embarrassed”.

Mr Lehrmann did not look up from his notebook while Ms Higgins spoke.

Brittany Higgins took the stand during her second day of the trial. Picture: Gary Ramage/NewsWire

JURY SHOWN CCTV FOOTAGE

Footage of the after work drinks attended by Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann at The Dock in Canberra was shown to the jury.

The court heard Ms Higgins had already consumed four drinks at the venue before he had arrived.

In total, Crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold said he estimated Ms Higgins had consumed 11 drinks over the course the four and half hours at The Dock.

“You appear to have consumed it in one gulp,” Mr Drumgold said about her final beveridge

“By parochial parlance, that appears to be a scull.”

Ms Higgins, who could be seen earlier stumbling while waiting for a drink at the bar, told the court she was quite intoxicated.

POLICE QUIZZED HIGGINS OVER ‘MISSING’ EMAIL

Police also questioned Ms Higgins about the contents of an email allegedly sent by Mr Lehrmann the day after the incident.

Asked if she had seen an email, sent from his personal account, Ms Higgins responded “no” and suggested it could have been in her “junk folder”.

Earlier in her first police interview, she said she had blocked Mr Lehrmann on all social media platforms and that he had not reached out via text message following the alleged assault.

But she said during her time in Michaelia Cash’s office, Mr Lehrmann began liking and liking the then-minister’s Facebook and Instagram photos.

“It was my belief that it was done on the basis I would get the notification,” she told police.

HIGGINS WAS SCARED TO COME FORWARD

The jury heard Ms Higgins broke down in tears telling police she kept conversations and doctors appointments off the books because she “was scared of coming forward” about her alleged rape in Parliament House and she was “cognisant of party implications”.

Ms Higgins arriving at court on the second day of the trial. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Prosecutors alleged in court Mr Lehrmann assaulted Ms Higgins after she lost consciousness on a couch in then-minister Linda Reynolds office after a night of drinking with staffers in Canberra.

Chief Justice Lucy McCallum and a jury of 16 returned to the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday for the second day of the trial to watch recordings of Ms Higgins’ interviews with police in February and May 2021.

Ms Higgins, in her second interview with the Australian Federal Police, said she divulged the alleged sexual assault to multiple people in Canberra including ministers Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash.

Multiple other Canberra advisors and members of her social circle were also told, in varying detail, including her ex boyfriend, Ms Higgins told police in May 2021.

Ms Higgins became emotional, crying into her hands as she told officers she did not see a GP in the immediate aftermath and felt under pressure as time went on and word spread.

“I was cognisant of all the party implications all the way through,” Ms Higgins said.

“Because of the pressure I was feeling, I made it hard for myself. I would have conversations in person, I spoke on WhatsApp … I was so scared of coming forward, I made it harder for myself in hindsight.”

She wept saying she “made it harder for myself to verify,” saying it was “stupid” before police reassured her.

Mr Lehrmann looked up at the screen as Ms Higgins cried in the recording.

Ms Higgins told police in her May 2021 interview she bought a pregnancy test in Perth weeks later during the election campaign, but she was not pregnant.

‘RELATIONSHIP WAS IMPROVING’

Police detectives in May 2021 also quizzed Ms Higgins about a note made by an officer during her first contact with police, in 2019.

The original detective wrote, in her notes, that “Bruce was sitting near me, he got quite handsy, I didn’t really mind”.

Brittany Higgins arrived at court on Wednesday morning for day two of the trial. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Ms Higgins has told police, in her February 2021 interview, she was very drunk on the night in question and her normally frosty relationship with Mr Lehrmann appeared to be improving when she fell over drunk and he helped her up.

“I guess I felt that way on the basis that, when I fell over, he helped me up, he was sitting quite close to me, I’m guessing that’s where that came from,” she told police in the May interview.

HIGGINS SAID SHE FELT ‘NOT HUMAN’

In the interviews, filmed two years after the alleged assault, Ms Higgins tells police she was jolted back into consciousness by Mr Lehrmann’s knee pressing into her thigh.

Ms Higgins told detectives, in the first recording played on Wednesday, that she said “no” half a dozen times and the officer asked Ms Higgins how she had said the words.

“I wasn’t screaming but there was obviously an urgency to it. I think the volume, it would have been reminiscent of this volume now,” she said.

“I was crying at that point. As soon as I came to, I started crying because I couldn’t get up.”

An officer asked Ms Higgins “how did it make you feel?” to allegedly regain consciousness in that situation.

“Trapped. Not human,” Ms Higgins responded.

Ms Higgins claimed Lehrmann was sweaty and appeared to be near the end of his alleged act and he did not stop – despite her protests.

“Me saying ‘no’ was a strange afterthought,” Ms Higgins told police.

“He wasn’t reactive to it. He was almost finishing, it wasn’t acknowledged he just kept going.”

Bruce Lehrmann arrived at court for day two of the trial. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

COURT TOLD OF DAYS AFTER INCIDENT

In the days afterwards, Ms Higgins told police, their boss Fiona Brown called Mr Lehrmann into her office.

About 45 minutes later, the jury heard Ms Higgins tell police, Mr Lehrmann walked out and packed his belongings and left.

Ms Higgins told police that she was called in next and felt like she was “in trouble”.

“I knew I hadn’t consented, but I still had this self-blame, guilt … I felt stressed I was about to be fired,” Ms Higgins told police.

She told police it wasn’t until that conversation with Ms Brown, days after the alleged incident, that she first began grappling with what allegedly happened.

“I said I didn’t consent, I said assault, I hadn’t said the word rape yet it sounded really abrasive,” Ms Higgins said.

“It was a hard thing for me to say, it still is a hard thing for me to say, it makes it real. Every time it makes it real.”

Ms Higgins told police she ate most of a box of chocolates and was sick in the office bathroom when she woke the next morning before she returned home.

The staffer told police she cried in her room all weekend, emerging only to eat.

Ms Higgins arrived wearing a cream coat. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

HIGGINS TELLS COURT OF OFFICE FILLED WITH ‘EGOS’

Earlier in the hearing, Ms Higgins described the first moment she met Bruce Lehrmann and said their workplace was brimming with tension with “lots of egos” in the room.

Ms Higgins alleges she was sexually assaulted by Mr Lehrmann in the office of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.

The second part of a police interview Ms Higgins gave in late February 2021 was played to the jury on Wednesday morning, with Ms Higgins returning to the stand for a second day.

In the video, she said she was introduced to Mr Lehrmann in a “weird quasi interview” with himself and then-ministerial staffer Nicole Hamer.

She reached out to Ms Harmer after her minister – Steven Ciobo – announced his resignation. Ms Higgins told police she had found a “window” to parliament and wanted to ensure she could stay.

But after she was employed in Senator Reynolds’ office, she said things turned quite “adversarial”.

“There were a lot of egos in the room of people trying to carve themselves out as the most important advisor,” she said in the interview.

Mr Lehrmann, she told police, was “nice to me sometimes” but he would demand she do tasks that were not part of her job.

“I did them because …. In ministerial offices the roles are all sort of blurred and you do what is asked of you,” she said.

“He was someone I perceived as being above me in station. So I did what he asked.”

Originally published as Moment Brittany Higgins faced Bruce Lehrmann for the first time in court