Angry Brittany Higgins spars with Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister under cross examination
Brittany Higgins admitted to inconsistencies in evidence during Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial, as she lashed out at his barrister’s assertion she fabricated her alleged rape.
Brittany Higgins has conceded she repeatedly gave incorrect evidence in Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial, admitting to inconsistencies in evidence about her state of undress following the alleged rape, how she acquired a large bruise on her leg and the length of a panic attack she had in the Parliament House toilets, as she labelled sections of her draft memoir detailing the alleged incident “crap”.
An angry Ms Higgins clashed with Mr Lehrmann’s barrister from the witness box of the Federal Court on Thursday, lashing out at his “insulting” assertion that she fabricated her alleged rape to save her job, as she was forced to explain why she lied about going to the doctor in the days following.
Mr Lehrmann is suing Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson over her interview with Ms Higgins on The Project in 2021, detailing accusations that Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins but not naming him as the alleged attacker.
Ten and Wilkinson rely on a defence of truth, and will try to prove Mr Lehrmann sexually assaulted Ms Higgins on the couch of Senator Linda Reynolds office in Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019. Mr Lehrmann has consistently denied raping Ms Higgins.
Ms Higgins began cross-examination under Steven Whybrow SC, the same barrister who picked apart her testimony during Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial, on Thursday morning.
In one particularly fiery exchange over whether Ms Higgins was partially or fully naked when she woke up after the alleged rape, Ms Higgins cried: “I was deeply more concerned about the penis in my vagina that I didn’t want there. It wasn’t about my dress.”
“I wasn’t concerned about my dress in that moment,” she continued. “The next morning when I woke up and vomited in the toilet the first thing I (thought) wasn’t ‘Where’s my dress? Is it on my body or is it on the ground?’”
Mr Whybrow snapped back: “Ms Higgins, you understand that I’m asserting that that is a fabrication that you were sexually assaulted, don’t you?”
Ms Higgins took a breath. “I understand that that is your assertion,” she said. “It’s insulting, but I understand it.”
She became upset again when asked about why she lied to police and her ex-boyfriend Ben Dillaway about going to the doctor in days following her alleged assault.
Mr Whybrow suggested to Ms Higgins that she lied because she hadn’t been raped.
“The reason you didn’t go to a doctor, like you told Mr Dillaway, and like you indicated to Ms (Fiona) Brown that you’re going to do, and like you told the police that you had, was because you hadn’t actually been sexually assaulted the week before,” Mr Whybrow said.
Ms Higgins disagreed and began to cry.
“I didn’t have a support system. I was by myself in Canberra. I had no one around me. I was so scared,” she said.
Network Ten’s barrister Matthew Collins KC eventually stepped in, saying he was concerned for her welfare.
Justice Michael Lee called a 10- minute break and, speaking over Ms Higgins’ loud sobs, said: “It’s very important that you feel you’re in a position to give your proper evidence and if you feel that you can’t, please please just let me know and I’ll adjourn it.”
The court heard Ms Higgins deny lying about getting raped to save her job. In another heated exchange with Mr Whybrow, the barrister suggested Ms Higgins did not tell anyone about the alleged rape until she was asked to sign a ministerial code of conduct by Fiona Brown on the Thursday after.
Ms Higgins disagreed, saying she first told Ms Brown and her ex-boyfriend about the alleged rape on the Tuesday.
“You wanted to keep your job … and you had passed out naked in the defence industry minister’s suite, and were found overnight,” Mr Whybrow said.
He continued: “You didn’t have sex with anybody that night. You passed out drunk in the minister’s personal suite. That’s correct, isn’t it?”
Ms Higgins: “It’s insulting and it’s incorrect, but you’re entitled to your opinion.”
Ms Higgins on Thursday admitted she was “not always correct” in evidence she gave in Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial.
Asked by Mr Whybrow whether she was “wrong about some significant matters” in the criminal proceedings, Ms Higgins said: “I accept that. Absolutely.”
“I thought I was telling the truth. I was just not always correct but I was always doing my best to tell the truth,” she said. Ms Higgins said she gave incorrect evidence during the criminal trial about how she got a large bruise on her leg, saying it may have happened when she tripped up the stairs at the 88mph nightclub and not as a result of the rape as she initially claimed.
She denied that a photo of the bruise was “invented” for the sake of The Project interview.
Mr Whybrow questioned Ms Higgins over evidence she gave about a three-hour long panic attack she had in the Parliament House bathrooms in the days following the alleged rape.
“In hindsight, it was not that long, but I did lock myself in the bathroom,” Ms Higgins replied. “It felt like a long time because I was under extreme stress, but three hours wouldn’t be accurate.”
Mr Whybrow: “Well, it was not honest evidence was it?”
Ms Higgins said she was in the bathroom for a “significant period of time” but ultimately said: “I got it wrong.”
Ms Higgins admitted to lying to Wilkinson about Mr Lehrmann removing her underwear on the night of the alleged rape.
The court was played a section of the pre-interview Ms Higgins conducted with Wilkinson and The Project producer Angus Llewelyn, in which Wilkinson is heard asking Ms Higgins if Mr Lehrmann removed her “panties” before he raped her. Ms Higgins said “yes” in response.
Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC suggested this was a lie, and Ms Higgins agreed.
Sections of a draft book Ms Higgins wrote for her deal with Penguin Random House were read for the courtroom, with Mr Whybrow drawing disparities between her evidence and stories she had written.
One section of the draft, detailing her experience directly after the alleged rape, read: “My near nakedness shocked me. My white dress hung loosely around my midsection like a belt. I tried helplessly to regain the modesty I realised I’d lost. I pulled my dress down and adjusted the straps.”
Ms Higgins said the book was “crap” and said evidence she gave in the witness box, including that she now could not be certain of her exact state of undress, should be taken as the truth.
The $325,000 book deal was acquired by Ms Higgins with the help of columnist Peter FitzSimons in March 2021, and the court heard Ms Higgins was paid a $108,333 advance.
Mr Whybrow suggested she could only press on with the book if Ten and Wilkinson were to win the proceedings, and it was proven on the balance of probabilities that Mr Lehrmann had raped her.
“The marketability of your future memoir is in some substantial part related to the truth of your allegations that Mr Lehrmann sexually assaulted you,” he said.
Ms Higgins replied: “Yes.”
Mr Whybrow: “So you have 216,000-odd reasons, in my submission, to not want to tell the truth, which was that it didn’t happen … You have a financial interest in the outcome of the proceedings.”
Ms Higgins said, if she ever finished the book, she would donate the $216,667 balance to charity.
The trial continues.
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