Brittany Higgins made a secret recording of phone call to Senator Michaelia Cash before resignation, court hears
Brittany Higgins secretly recorded a phone conversation with then-employment Minister Michaelia Cash in the days after her resignation.
Brittany Higgins secretly recorded a phone conversation with then-employment Minister Michaelia Cash in the days after her resignation over her alleged sexual assault at Parliament House, a court has heard.
Bruce Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent against Ms Higgins in the early hours of March 23, 2019.
Ms Higgins spent Thursday on the witness stand in the Supreme Court in Canberra facing questions about the night and the events after.
“You recorded her on that call without her knowledge?,” Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer Steve Whybrow asked of the call with Ms Cash.
“That’s correct,” Ms Higgins confirmed.
Ms Higgins told the jury it was “the weirdest call of my life” as the Senator spoke about a security guard being the alleged perpetrator.
Within 15 minutes of that phone call finishing, Ms Higgins sent that recording to friend Emma Webster, the court heard.
“It was my word against a cabinet minister. The power disparity between them is ridiculous,” she said.
Ms Higgins said the recording was sent to multiple friends for “safekeeping”.
The admission came shortly after Ms Higgins told the court she had also recorded a conversation with Daniel Try, the former chief of staff to the minister, without his consent.
“It was for my legal protection,” she said. “Just to corroborate … I didn’t know if (journalist Samantha Maiden) believed me 100 per cent.”
Higgins breaks down watching CCTV
Ms Higgins broke down in tears while viewing CCTV footage of her and Mr Lehrmann going through security to get into the building on the night in question.
When asked how high her level of intoxication was at the time the footage was taken, Ms Higgins said she didn’t “remember any of this so it was very high”.
The CCTV showed Ms Higgins walking through the security at 1.46am on March 23, 2019 and appearing to struggle to put her shoes back on.
At this point, Ms Higgins became visibly upset on the witness stand and began crying.
She confirmed it was the second time she had been shown this footage, with the first being during her second police interview in May of 2021.
Court hears Wilkinson ‘angry’ when interview aired
Ms Higgins was questioned under cross-examination about the timeline of when she engaged with police to bring forward her accusation against Mr Lehrmann and when she met with The Project’s Lisa Wilkinson to record an interview for the show.
Ms Higgins said that she hadn’t had an in depth conversation with Ms Wilkinson about her accusation against Mr Lehrmann before she emailed two police officers on February 4, 2021, explaining her wish to move forward with her complaint.
The court heard Ms Higgins say she had a phone conversation with Ms Wilkinson broadly about the culture of Parliament House before the police email.
Mr Whybrow then produced a document signed by Ms Higgins stating she had recorded an interview with Ms Wilkinson for The Project on February 2, 2021.
Ms Higgins said she didn’t “necessarily want to hurt” the Liberal Party by speaking to the media about her experience.
“I wanted to address a cultural problem. I loved the Liberal Party,” Ms Higgins said.
The court heard Ms Higgins say there were discussions around when The Project interview would be aired, with the former Liberal staffer saying Wilkinson was “quite angry” it aired on a Monday, as it was a day she was not typically on the show.
The court heard how a timeline of events prepared by Ms Higgins to give to the police was given out to two journalists by her partner David Sharaz.
Ms Higgins said in the wake of going public with her accusations, she and her partner were “inundated” with media inquiries.
“I was pretty out of it because I was taking a lot of Valium at that point because I wasn’t coping,” Ms Higgins told the court.
She said Mr Sharaz made the decision to provide the prepared timeline to two journalists on background but that “trust was breached” and it ended up in the hands of the “whole press gallery”.
Ms Higgins said Mr Sharaz “very clearly regrets” the decision to hand out the document that was originally only intended for the police.
On Thursday afternoon, Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer briefly paused his cross examination of Ms Higgins to inform her the third day of the trial was almost over.
“You’ll be pleased to know we are nearly finished for the day,” Mr Whybrow said at about five minutes to 4pm.
“Oh thank God,” Ms Higgins responded.
Higgins cross examined over dress claim
Earlier, Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer Steven Whybrow began cross examination by questioning the former staffer about the dress she was wearing on the night of the alleged assault.
Mr Whybrow referred to a claim made by Ms Higgins earlier on Thursday that she had placed the dress in a bag under her bed for a period of six months unwashed.
The court had earlier heard that after this period of time Ms Higgins had washed the dress and wore it once more.
During the cross examination, Mr Whybrow asked whether this event was a dinner on May 15, 2019 for Senator Reynolds’ birthday in Perth.
Mr Whybrow pointed out that Ms Higgins had said the dress had remained under her bed for six months, though she was shown wearing it in a photograph from the dinner less than two months after the alleged assault.
“It stayed under my bed for a particular period of time. I was wrong for saying it was six months. But it stayed under my bed unwashed for a period of time,” Ms Higgins told the court.
Mr Whybrow suggested Ms Higgins was not wrong but instead was “not giving true and correct evidence”, the court heard.
“I made a mistake. I was just wrong,” Ms Higgins said.
When asked why she chose to take the dress to Perth with her when she was working for Senator Reynolds in the lead up to the Federal election, Ms Higgins said she was “reclaiming my agency”.
“It may sound ridiculous to you,” she told Mr Whybrow.
Ms Higgins said it was an “empowerment thing” and she wanted to reclaim her agency in the dress she had worn on the night of the alleged assault.
The jury heard Mr Whybrow say it sounded “completely inconsistent with your evidence”.
Higgins’ last email to Bruce Lehrmann
Email exchanges between Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann in the lead up to and following the alleged assault have been shown to the jury.
In the days before the alleged assault, Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann exchanged a number of emails which the former Liberal staffer described as “pretty standard stuff”.
On Monday, following the alleged incident, the court heard Ms Higgins sent Mr Lehrmann an email asking for his help on a work task.
In the email, Ms Higgins wrote that she was “phoning a friend” and asking for help on the task that she had been sent.
The former political staffer told the court Mr Lehrmann had the most extensive knowledge to help with the task which is why she reached out to him.
That was the last email exchange the pair had, with Ms Higgins saying she did not speak to him in person because it was “too hard”.
“I could do it behind a computer screen,” she told the court.
“I was trying to silo myself and pretend it didn’t happen as much as humanly possible.”
The cross examination of the former Liberal staffer will resume on Friday morning.
— with NCA NewsWire
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