Lisa Wilkinson and Brittany Higgins’ partner thrown ‘under the bus’, defence says

Brittany Higgins has been accused of throwing her partner David Sharaz and Lisa Wilkinson “under the bus” after she went public with her sexual assault allegations.

Brittany Higgins has been accused of throwing her partner David Sharaz and Lisa Wilkinson “under the bus” after she went to the media with her sexual assault allegations.

The former Liberal staffer has accused her ex-colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, of raping her at Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

He has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent.

During his closing argument on Tuesday, Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer, Steven Whybrow, offered the jury examples of where he believed Ms Higgins had not been truthful in her evidence or had thrown people under the bus.

He pointed the jury to claims Ms Higgins made under cross examination about what happened after she decided to go to the media with her allegations.

Brittany Higgins has been accused of throwing Lisa Wilkinson ‘under the bus’, a court has heard. Picture: Channel 10

Her claims were first published by news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden on February 15, 2021, with an interview with Lisa Wilkinson airing on The Project that night.

Last week Ms Higgins told the court there were discussions around when The Project interview would be aired, with the former Liberal staffer saying Ms Wilkinson was “quite angry” it aired on a Monday, as it was a day she was not typically on the show.

She said it increasingly became “not about me or my story” and more about who would win journalism awards.

Mr Whybrow pointed to these comments from Ms Higgins in his closing argument on Tuesday.

“That’s an example of her throwing other people under the bus where something is happening that might not suit her,” he told the jury.

Mr Whybrow also highlighted an exchange he had with Ms Higgins during cross examination where he pressed her on a written timeline, which was later distributed to the media.

The court had previously heard the timeline was established by Ms Higgins in 2021 to give to the police when she decided to move ahead with her allegations against Mr Lehrmann.

During the back and forth, which the barrister read out to the jury, Ms Higgins told the court that it was her partner, Mr Sharaz, who made the executive decision to give the timeline to the media.

Brittany Higgins and partner David Sharaz.. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Ms Higgins said in the wake of going public with her accusations, she and her partner were “inundated” with media inquiries.

She said she was “pretty out of it” and taking a lot Valium at this point because she wasn’t coping, with Mr Sharaz making the decision to provide the timeline to two journalists on background.

The court previously heard Mr Sharaz regretted this as the “trust was breached” and the document ended up in the hands of the whole “press gallery”.

Referring to these comments from Ms Higgins, Mr Whybrow told the jury on Tuesday: “David Sharaz now goes under the bus to say he sent it out in those circumstances.”

In reading the rest of the cross examination exchange, Mr Whybrow said Ms Higgins eventually accepted she had sent a text message to a journalist from The Australian asking if she had received the background document Mr Sharaz sent to her, which included the timeline.

“You have to pull every tooth before you get the truth,” Mr Whybrow told the jury.

Jury warned against ‘red herrings’

In his closing address, Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, warned the jury not to get “distracted by side issues or red herrings”.

He said the case against Mr Lehrmann was not about political parties, workplace cultures or whether Parliament House responded to reports of a security breach appropriately.

“It is certainly not about the experiences of other women in Parliament. And it’s not about the MeToo movement,” he said.

“This case is about what happened on a couch in a room on Saturday the 23rd of March 2019.”

Bruce Lehrmann. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ben Appleton

The jury has heard it “defies common sense” that anything Ms Higgins said or did two years after the alleged assault in 2020 could “impact the credibility of what she said or did back in 2019”.

Mr Drumgold described Ms Higgins as a credible witness, telling the jury that her story and the evidence provided by her has remained consistent over the years.

“We submit she did not falter. If this is a fabrication she’s also quite the actor.”

He said if the jury was “comfortably satisfied beyond reasonable doubt” that Ms Higgins has told the truth then “the only verdict you can return is a verdict of guilty”.

The prosecution completed its final arguments on Tuesday afternoon, with the defence expected to do the same on Wednesday.

The trial continues.