Higgins faces Lehrmann in court as CCTV shows drunken night before alleged Parliament rape
CCTV footage of Brittany Higgins skolling a vodka drink has been shown to the jury in Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial. See the text messages to Higgins’ ex-boyfriend after her alleged assault.
Police & Courts
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Brittany Higgins’ texts to a confidant, her ex partner, have been released by the courts revealing the concerns she held for her job in politics in the wake of her alleged rape in Parliament House by fellow staffer, Bruce Lehrmann.
Ms Higgins alleges she was raped by Lehrmann in then-Minister Linda Reynolds office in the early hours of Friday, March 23, 2019, on a couch after drinking with political advisers including Lehrmann all night.
Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty.
Ms Higgins texted her ex the following Tuesday, after divulging the alleged assault to her supervisor, saying “I think I may not continue to be employed” in the minister’s office.
“It’s pretty bad,” Ms Higgins continued in the texts which have been shown to the jury.
“I genuinely don’t know how it’s meant to play out/ how I want it to play out.”
Ms Higgins’ ex tells her to own up if she made a mistake before Ms Higgins hints she “vaguely remembers” being in the office with Lehrmann and waking up half-dressed the next morning.
Ms Higgins said her father was flying down as she was upset over the weekend.
“I was barely lucid, I really don’t feel like it was consensual at all,” Ms Higgins said.
Ms Higgins told her confidant Lehrmann had been terminated and she was considering going back to her hometown, the Queensland Gold Coast.
DAY TWO: JURY SHOWN CCTV FROM NIGHT OF ALLEGED RAPE
Brittany Higgins had her first vodka at 7:24pm, after four and a half hours she was pictured on CCTV skolling another, believed to be her 11th, standing inches from the man she alleges raped her in Parliament House that evening.
Ms Higgins, on Wednesday afternoon, walked into the ACT Supreme Court and faced Bruce Lehrmann, the man she alleges sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious on a couch in the office of their boss – then-Minister Linda Reynolds.
Lehrmann, 27, 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.
A jury of 16 returned to the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday for the second day to watch CCTV of the hours leading up to the allegations that Justice Lucy McCallum described as a “cause célèbre”, a matter of public significance and attention.
Crown Prosecutor Shane Drumgold took Ms Higgins through the security footage taken from The Dock which began with her walking in to meet other political staffers just before 7:30pm.
Lehrmann is filmed walking into The Dock about an hour after Ms Higgins arrived and, through the night, appeared to buy her two drinks.
The security camera overlooking the bar was watching as Ms Higgins staggered backward just after 10pm, she told the court her intoxication level was “getting quite high”.
At 11:50pm the group is leaving, bound for an 80s themed dance club, and Ms Higgins skolls what appears to be her eleventh vodka and the group exits The Dock.
Mr Drumgold asked Ms Higgins if she had skolled a drink before.
“In my life? Yes,” Ms Higgins replied.
“As an adult?” Mr Drumgold asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Ms Higgins replied, adding she had not drank that much as an adult before.
As court broke for the day Ms Higgins wiped tears from her eyes.
It’s expected more CCTV footage, which will be played to the jury, will show Ms Higgins and Lehrmann, just after midnight, drunkenly entering Parliament House together.
Earlier on Wednesday the jury watched Ms Higgins give interviews to police in February and May 2021.
In those interviews she told detectives she jolted awake to find Lehrmann on top of her in Minister Reynolds’ office, on the couch, having sex with her as she told him “no” half a dozen times.
An officer asked Ms Higgins “how did it make you feel?” to allegedly regain consciousness in that situation.
“Trapped. Not human,” Ms Higgins responded in the interview.
The jury also watched Ms Higgins, in the May 2021 meeting with police, as she reacted to the CCTV footage of her entering Parliament House – she became emotional viewing the footage and cried.
LEHRMANN’S ‘PASS’ BEFORE ALLEGED RAPE: POLICE INTERVIEW
The former staffer, in her May 2021 interview, told police she recalled Lehrmann had made “a pass” at her weeks before the alleged sexual assault.
They had been at the Kingston Hotel, Ms Higgins told police, and as Lehrmann got into a taxi he leaned in and tried to kiss her.
“I remember I was kind of shocked because he leant forward into my face,” Ms Higgins told police in May 2021.
“But I had other people in politics who made passes at me before, it wasn’t a massive deal at the time.”
She said they never spoke of it again and she “didn’t want to embarrass” Lehrmann so she didn’t believe she told anyone.
Police told Ms Higgins, in that same May 2021 interview, that a witness alleged the pair had kissed at 88MPH before they went to Parliament House.
Ms Higgins appeared surprised and told police she had no recollection of a kiss, though she “trusted a sober mind” over her own memories, which she previously described as patchy and incomplete.
AFTERMATH: HIGGINS ‘SCARED’ TO REPORT ALLEGED RAPE
Ms Higgins became emotional in her second police interview, crying into her hands as she told officers she feared coming forward with the allegation against Lehrmann.
“I was cognisant of party implications all the way through,” Ms Higgins said.
“Because of the pressure I was feeling, I made it hard for myself. I had conversations in person, I spoke on WhatsApp, I was really scared of coming forward, it made it hard for myself.”
She wept saying she “made it hard for myself to verify”, saying it was “stupid” before police reassured her.
Text messages, released by the court on Wednesday and shown to the jury, reveal the signature Lehrmann allegedly jotted on a security log to get them both into Parliament House.
It also included texts between Ms Higgins and her ex-boyfriend, immediately after the alleged rape, in which she contemplates what will happen in her career.
The trial continues.
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