Court hears of Brittany Higgins’ ‘strange relationship’ with accused

A court heard Brittany Higgins had a “strange adversarial relationship” with the man accused of raping her in 2019.

Brittany Higgins was seen wiping away tears during the first day of the trial of Bruce Lehrmann, the man accused of raping her in Parliament House in 2019.

Mr Lehrmann is accused of one count of sexual intercourse without consent against Brittany Higgins in Parliament House on March 23, 2019. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Ms Higgins appeared to the court via video link on Tuesday afternoon from a remote room within the ACT Supreme Court.

She wore a navy dress and was accompanied by her support person, ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates.

Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, asked Ms Higgins if it was correct that she had sat down with the police and participated in two recorded interviews.

“Yes, that is correct,” Ms Higgins said.

The court was then played the video of Ms Higgins’ first recorded police interview, which took place on February 24, 2021.

Ms Higgins, then 26, was seen wearing a white button up shirt and black pants as she sat opposite two police detectives.

Brittany Higgins. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

In the interview, Ms Higgins said there was a group of about 25 people who were meeting for drinks at The Dock bar in Canberra on the evening of March 22, 2019.

Part of the group were defence industry contacts that Ms Higgins knew, and another part of the group were some of her colleagues from Parliament House that she had invited along to the drinks, including Mr Lehrmann.

Court hears of ‘strange relationship’

The court heard Ms Higgins had a “strange adversarial relationship” with the accused and that he was trying to “carve out space” in the office.

“We had a strange relationship,” she said in the interview.

During the night, Ms Higgins said the evening appeared to be going quite well and Mr Lehrmann was being quite responsive to her.

She told the police he was buying her “lots of drinks” and she believed they were going “drink for drink”, but said she later heard that he was not as inebriated as she was.

When a small section of the group went to a second venue, 88mph club, Ms Higgins said she was “very, very drunk” to the point where she fell over and grazed her knee.

“After I fell, Bruce helped me up. I thought we were getting to the point where it was a better relationship, being so adversarial. I was quite accepting of his help,” Ms Higgins said.

She said at the end of the night there was a suggestion that she and Mr Lehrmann should share a taxi as they both lived in the same direction.

The court heard Mr Lehrmann indicated that he needed to stop by Parliament House to pick something up from the office.

Bruce Lehrmann, the man accused of the sexual assault of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Once they were in the office of former Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, Ms Higgins said she didn’t remember how she came to be on the lounge where she says the alleged assault took place.

“The next thing I remember is being on the couch and he was raping me,” the court heard her say in the police interview.

Ms Higgins said at that point she felt as if time had passed and the accused was “almost finished”.

“I was crying throughout the entire process,” she said.

Ms Higgins said she said “no” at least half a dozen times but he “did not stop”.

She said eventually Mr Lehrmann stopped and left the room, at which point Ms Higgins said she couldn’t get off the lounge and passed out.

The court heard the next thing Ms Higgins remembered was hearing a female security guard yelling into the office and asking if she was okay.

She told the police she left Parliament House at around 10am in an Uber.

The first person Ms Higgins told about the alleged assault was Fiona Brown, the then chief of staff for Ms Reynolds, the court heard.

This occurred on the Tuesday following the alleged assault, with Ms Brown calling both Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins in for separate meetings.

The court was shown 38 minutes of the police interview, with the rest expected to be played on Day 2 of the trial.

After the video was shown, the monitors in the courtroom switched back to Ms Higgins who had red eyes and was seen wiping her face multiple times.

She could be heard sniffling before her microphone was muted.