Senator Linda Reynolds tells court of “catty” comments about Higgins’ outfit similar to Kate Middleton
Senator Linda Reynolds has revealed the “cattiness” behind comments she made about Brittany Higgins’ outfits, during the pair’s blockbuster defamation trial.
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Senator Linda Reynolds has revealed to a court she was “a little catty and oversensitive” when she made comments comparing Brittany Higgins to Kate Middleton in the pair’s blockbuster defamation trial.
Senator Reynolds is suing Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz over social media posts the couple made in 2022 and 2023.
The posts were critical of Ms Reynolds’ handling of Ms Higgins’ allegation she was raped in Parliament House in 2019 by her then colleague Bruce Lehrmann.
Mr Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to rape and faced trial in 2022, but the trial was aborted due to juror misconduct.
The charge was dropped and Mr Lehrmann continues to maintain his innocence.
‘LYING COW’ COMMENT LEAKED TO MEDIA
In her second day of intense questioning, Senator Reynolds told the court she believed her former employee Nicole Hamer leaked the “lying cow” comment to media.
She made the claim while being questioned on Wednesday by her lawyer Martin Bennett.
Mr Bennett asked the senator about text messages she shared with Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer Steven Whybrow during the criminal trial.
During the criminal proceedings, Mr Whybrow asked the senator to identify a jacket Ms Higgins was wearing in a photograph when she left Parliament House on the night of the alleged rape.
Senator Reynolds confirmed she believed the jacket was hers and sent a photo of her wearing it to Mr Whybrow as requested.
“Ms Higgins had a predilection for expensive clothes, including my jacket,“ the senator told the court on Wednesday.
Texts were shown to the court which showed Senator Reynold’s frustration of Ms Higgins arriving at the ACT Supreme Court for the criminal trial in an outfit worn by Kate Middleton.
Senator Reynolds said she was probably being a “little catty and over sensitive” about Ms Higgins imitating Kate Middleton at the criminal trial.
She was also questioned by Mr Whybrow about the meeting that took place with Ms Higgins in her office where the alleged incident occurred.
SENATOR LEAKS TO JOURNALIST
When Senator Reynolds received a letter about Ms Higgins’ claim with the Commonwealth she says she did not realise the Attorney General would completely take over her defence and exclude her from mediation.
The letter was marked confidential, the court heard, and that legal privilege applied to protect communications with Ms Higgins until the end of the criminal trial and any appeal to conclude.
“The Attorney General was the primary decision maker, it was the Attorney General who made this decision,” Senator Reynolds said.
“It was clear to me this was an intervention by the Attorney General.”
The court was told through the senator’s lawyers she took issue with the requirements set out by the Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth did not agree to waive the requirement.
The senator confirmed she sent the letter about six days later to a journalist at The Australian using her personal email account.
Ms Young put to the senator that she knew the letter was confidential.
“I never signed the letter, it was a proposal the Commonwealth wanted,” Senator Reynolds said.
“I had not agreed to their confidentiality or terms, I never signed or agreed to have an order to lock me down.
“What was top on my mind was the fact that I was not going to sign the confidentiality… I was not going to sign an agreement to be locked down.”
SETTLEMENT WITH HIGGINS
Senator Reynolds said she was sorry she made the “lying cow” comment.
She agreed she was under increased pressure to resign over the comment and that her position had been labelled untenable in the media.
She told the court calls for her resignation were not new, but agreed they heightened when the comment was made public.
The senator said one of the reasons why she settled with Ms Higgins was to preserve her position as the Defence Minister.
She believed the process to settle with Ms Higgins was unfair to her and expedient.
“Dealing with this matter while still under great stress, it was awful, that would have been one of many reasons,” she said.
“They were keen to settle quickly, and I found it very difficult to deal with.
“I was happy for it be dealt with because of everything else that was going on at the time.”
THE PROJECT INTERVIEW CAUSED ‘FRUSTRATION’
Ms Higgins’ defence lawyer Rachel Young began her cross-examination of the senator after the lunch adjournment on Wednesday, grilling her on the ‘lying cow’ comment.
The senator is accused of making the comment in her office while watching Ms Higgins’ interview on The Project.
While she told the court she couldn’t recall saying ‘lying cow’, the senator did not deny the possibility she could have said them because she was “very angry”.
“I don’t recall those exact words but was very upset about what she conveyed about me and Ms Brown, and how Lisa Wilkinson was portraying it,” the senator told the court.
“It was just something I said to express frustration about what she was saying about Fiona Brown and myself.
“It represented my frustration.”
The senator told the court a complaint had been made by a staff member in her office about the comment, prompting her to call a meeting to apologise.
Senator Reynolds said she could not recall saying it, but had no reason not to believe what her staff told her.
During her questioning, she denied the cause of her stress being the publication of the “lying cow” comment, saying her stress was caused by the accusation she covered up Ms Higgins’ rape allegation.
“There were calls for my resignation in those two weeks, I had been turned into a villain,” Senator Reynolds told the court.
“It wasn’t just the media it was the relentless hounding I received in the senate, on social media trolling and calls to my office. It was overwhelming.”
Senator Reynolds told the court she never apologised in a public statement to Ms Higgins about calling her a lying cow, but made it clear she never doubted her sexual assault
“I don’t know how much clearer I could have made it,” she said.
“I did not apologise for the lies she was telling about me and Fiona Brown.”
Senator Reynolds issued an apology to Ms Higgins the day after The Project interview was broadcast, the court heard.
She told the court she did everything not to prejudice the potential investigation of the court case.
“I made it very clear I never doubted her alleged sexual assault and I apologised, but what I did not agree with her was her characterisation of me, I believed they were lies,” Senator Reynolds said.
‘SHE WON’T STOP’
Under questioning from her lawyer Martin Bennett, Senator Reynolds told the court she initiated legal action against Mr Sharaz and Ms Higgins because she felt complete despair and needed the allegations to stop.
“I am taking these proceedings because she will not stop,” she said.
She said the social media posts made her look like she was stalking and harassing Ms Higgins, and she was made to look like a liar who was involved in a cover-up.
The senator said she felt like a punching clown at a fair that kept getting knocked down only to bounce back smiling before she was punched down again.
She said multiple posts and media articles had damaged not only herself, but her family and her parents multiple times.
The senator told the court posts from the couple had suggested she was stalking Ms Higgins and that she did not have a right to seek justice for herself.
“Me seeking justice and having my voice heard was somehow silencing her,” she said.
“Taking part in judicial processes was me bullying her, you can run but you can’t hide, that is what these posts are all about, to engender that sort of story.
“And it works time after time after time.”
The senator said a post that said “you can stay comfortable” caused the most offence because she and her husband had put their house on the line to take part in these proceedings.
“It is gross and unfair,” she said.
“Robert and I have put everything on the line to be here today and seek justice.
“That ain’t comfortable Mr Bennett.”
‘THE MOST VILE THINGS’
Senator Reynolds told the court how her staff, family and parents were constantly bombarded with emails and phone calls from people saying “the most vile things” about her.
The senator said they would receive calls and emails daily from people who asked how they could associate with such an evil woman.
“It took a toll on my staff, my family and my parents,” she said.
She said her older nieces were exposed to articles about their aunty being accused of covering up the rape of a young woman.
The court was told the senator’s parents became obsessed, reading everything that was printed and knew the allegations being made about their daughter were not true.
“My parents had to be put through this again and again, I am certain it has impacted on their health,” she said.
“I am very fortunate to have a great circle of friends in Perth and Canberra, but after three and a half years of supporting someone, it is a big ask.
“I feel guilty.
“I have to put on a brave face all the time at work, then I go home, it is the only place I can be a human being.
“Robert and my family have had to be there for me through all this because I never had the opportunity to defend myself.”
HIGGINS’ ‘PREMEDITATED’ ATTACK ON REYNOLDS
Senator Reynolds said it became evident during Mr Lehrmann’s defamation trial against Lisa Wilkinson and Network 10 over Ms Higgins’ interview with The Project the extent to which Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz had planned to attack her.
A transcript between Ms Higgins, Mr Sharaz and Ms Wilkinson was provided to the court as evidence, which the senator said recycled all the allegations they had made about her.
She said after reading the transcript, it became clear it was a premeditated and personal attack on her.
“I felt despair,” she said.
“As the trial went on and more information came out it was very clear just how premediated this plan was.
“I had no idea just how well planned this was.”
She said the couple had plans for everything, including the media and Me-Too movement and government.
The senator told the court she could not understand how she and Ms Higgins had such different recollections of events from 2019.
“I was angry and stupid because I had done everything in the Senate not to reveal the confidential nature of the agreement I had with Ms Higgins in 2019,” she said.
“In my mind I had blamed Labor, on what Kimberley had told me, and that Labor was prepared for this.
On Tuesday, Senator Reynolds told the court how the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching approached her at Parliament House to warn her Labor knew about Ms Higgins’ allegations.
The senator said she was told by her colleague that the Labor Party were going to “rain hell” on her, but she struggled to understand why anybody would weaponise such an incident in parliament.
JACKET-GATE
Senator Reynolds told the court Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer Steven Whybrow showed her a photo of Ms Higgins leaving Parliament House on the morning of the alleged rape, ahead of his criminal trial.
Mr Whybrow asked the senator if she recognised the jacket Ms Higgins was wearing.
The senator said it was her jacket, which she thought she had lost.
He also showed her a series of tweets that had been made by Ms Wilkinson.
Mr Bennett said former director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold tried to make the senator a hostile witness during the criminal trial.
He said it was publicised with headlines saying the senator had tried to help “rapist’s lawyer.”
‘DENIED’ A DEFENCE
Taking the stand for her third day of evidence on Wednesday, Senator Reynolds said she was utterly outraged when she received a letter from the Attorney-General that informed her she would be excluded from mediation proceedings with Ms Higgins.
The senator told the court it was finally her opportunity to defend herself from Ms Higgins allegations and she was denied the opportunity.
“It would have been my opportunity to defend myself and to defend these claims, which I thought were utterly defendable,” she said.
“I was outraged.
“They denied me the opportunity to defend these claims and I was outraged.”
HIGGINS SAGA ‘LED TO SENATOR’S DEATH’
During her second day of evidence, Senator Reynolds asked to take a break after her blood pressure spiked recalling a conversation she had with former Labor senator Kimberley Kitching.
“This is a particularly emotional point because it led to Senator Kitching’s death,” Senator Reynolds told the court.
She said Senator Kitching approached her in February 2021 to apologise about something she was about to tell her.
Senator Reynolds told the court Senator Kitching informed her Labor knew about the incident in her office and they were going to “rain hell” on her.
Senator Reynolds said she could not understand why anybody would “weaponise such an incident” in parliament.
“I still can’t find the words to describe, even for Labor they pull some pretty nasty stunts, but this I found hard to believe,” she said.
The trial continues.
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