Brittany Higgins asks for delay in Linda Reynolds defamation case
Brittany Higgins’ move to delay the six-week trial is expected to be strenuously opposed by Linda Reynolds, who is concerned any delay could push the defamation case into 2025.
Brittany Higgins and her fiance, David Sharaz, will ask the West Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday to vacate the July 24 trial date set for the defamation battle with former Liberal defence minister Linda Reynolds.
The Australian understands Ms Higgins’s move to delay the six-week trial will be strenuously opposed by Senator Reynolds, who is concerned that any delay could push the defamation case into 2025.
The move follows Michael Lee’s judgment in the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann that the former Liberal staffer raped Ms Higgins, but that Senator Reynolds and her then chief of staff, Fiona Brown, had not been parties to any cover-up of the rape.
Senator Reynolds has flagged her intention to proceed with the claims against Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz, despite Ms Higgins’s public apology to the senator, saying that the false allegations of being part of a cover-up destroyed her reputation.
In his judgment, Justice Lee slammed the cover-up allegation pushed by Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz as “objectively short on facts, but long on speculation and internal inconsistencies”.
“Trying to particularise it during the evidence was like trying to grab a column of smoke,” he wrote.
He found there was no evidence that anyone was suggesting to Ms Higgins for her not to proceed in any way contrary to her own judgment as to what was best for her, let alone pressuring or threatening her to do so.
The WA trial may have particular significance for the $2.4m compensation payout Ms Higgins received from the commonwealth, following Justice Lee’s findings that she made nine false representations in the personal injury claim. Justice Lee made a point of noting that Ms Higgins was not a party to the defamation case but simply a witness: “no findings in this proceeding bind her and, of course, no relief is sought in this proceeding in relation to the Commonwealth Deed”.
The Australian National Audit Office and National Anti-Corruption Commission may attach significantly more weight to findings where Ms Higgins is a party. Senator Reynolds has asked the NACC to investigate the payment.
Earlier this year, Senator Reynolds took steps to freeze Ms Higgins’s assets after she and Mr Sharaz went to live in France, to ensure the $2.4m, or any part of it, was not beyond the reach of an adverse defamation judgment.
Mystery surrounds a trust apparently set up by Ms Higgins, active from February 9 last year, called The Brittany Higgins Protective Trust.
After Justice Lee’s judgment, Ms Higgins issued a public statement in which she acknowledged that “Senator Reynolds and Fiona Brown have also been hurt and for that I am also sorry”.
“My perceptions and feelings about what happened in the days and weeks after my rape are different from theirs,” she said.
‘I deeply regret we have not yet found common ground. I hope we can resolve our differences with a better understanding of each other’s experiences.”
Senator Reynolds said she appreciated the apology and hoped the findings would give Ms Higgins peace, but would continue her defamation case unless Ms Higgins accepted Justice Lee’s findings there was no political cover-up. “If Ms Higgins does not accept Justice Lee’s findings on the claims of cover-up and mistreatment then, regrettably, it will have to be proved again in our trial set for July this year,” she said.
Senator Reynolds, Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz met in Perth earlier this year for court-ordered mediation to try to resolve the defamation matter. Those talks ended without any breakthrough.
Lawyers for the parties are due to appear before Justice Tottle.
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