Alice Coster: Brittany Higgins’ pain on repeat is like bad TV for sadists

What was the Bruce Lehrmann trial and now the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial is in reality the Brittany Higgins trial.

A headline that read, “Brittany lied about wearing underpants,” was the clincher.

Affronting, jarring, the crass sentence said everything that is wrong about what is still misreported as the trial of Brittany Higgins.

Sadly, what was the Bruce Lehrmann trial and now the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial, remains in reality, the Brittany Higgins trial.

Big girls don’t cry, but I feel the tears welling up knowing I’m not the only woman to be shocked, insulted and, yes, abused by what is happening to a young woman found naked, stripped of much more than a dress, on a couch in a minister’s office in federal parliament.

How did a story about a young woman in a place that should be the most protected, revered and safest of harbours in this country, sink to this farrago?

Watching her torment and pain in the witness box, hearing the questions she is made to answer, the memories she is forced to recount, is simply too much to bear.

And I am not alone in this.

Because if there is one thing many females in this country know it is what hurts most can be what comes after.

Why would anyone come forward with such allegations when what Higgins is experiencing is what they may be subjected to?

Brittany Higgins with her lawyers. Picture: Jeremy Piper

The relentless cross examination, her evidence questioned, ridiculed, prodded and probed, puts her pain on repeat.

The whole world watches. Thousands upon thousands watch online, perhaps millions. Some are voyeurs.

It is mortifying, distressing and a disgrace. Is this how the judicial system treats a young woman who comes forward?

Myself and almost all of my female friends have experienced some form of what Brittany has gone through.

None of us would dare come forward in fear of the consequences of speaking up.

Movements such as #metoo brought hope that understanding and compassion would follow for women who have come forward.

More likely it caused them to be blamed for causing cancel culture in a woke world.

Eyes wide shut.

Many women have tried to literally scrub away memories of rape and abuse, scrubbing in the shower until they are red raw.

Buried so deep, some start to question whether it happened at all, as has been suggested to Higgins.

Watching a woman traumatised and retraumatised in the witness box is enough to trigger memories of their own assault all over again.

Bruce Lehrmann arrives at Federal Court. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Watching the live stream on the Australian Federal Court channel is trauma porn or bad reality TV for sadists.

Before she was free to vacate the witness box, Higgins faced more hours of questioning than that faced by Lehrmann.

He did not take the stand in the original criminal trial, as was his right. It was Higgins who was endlessly cross examined about that night of drinking in Canberra’s bars with a bunch of bright young political staffers.

There was Higgins in the “white” dress she wore before she was found naked on the couch. It becomes a lawyer’s totem, like Monica Lewinsky’s “blue” dress.

Again and again we see the security camera footage of Higgins and Lehrmann and the drinks bought and placed in front of her.

Justice Michael Lee remarked, in a strangely surreal moment, that it had been shown more times than the Zapruder film, the violent footage taken on a home-movie camera by Abraham Zapruder of the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963.

No one died in the video of Brittany Higgins. Yet we see the demise of justice suffered in many cases of abuse, mostly unreported with few resulting in a conviction.

Brittany Higgins leaves the Federal Court. Picture: Nikki Short

For what reason do nearly 90 per cent of sexual assault victims fail to engage with the justice system?

It is because the justice system itself generally deters many women from reporting sexual offences to police.

Victims say the system itself is like another rape or sexual assault because of the questions they are asked, the details demanded and the intrusion into their lives over those of the accused.

There are more protections for the accused than the accuser and even defence lawyers are concerned about the rigours of the system, although they are so often the relentless voices breaking down a witness to sway a jury.

There is a balance between the rights of the accused and the accuser that is not always evident when a victim faces an interrogator.

The reality of cross examination in cases of rape or abuse puts the character of the accuser on trial.

Slut shaming.

The case before the Federal Court today is about defamation.

It just doesn’t seem that way at all.