Brittany Higgins’ evidence ‘complex’, but more reliable than Bruce Lehrmann, says Justice Michael Lee

Brittany Higgins told organised ‘untruths’ when convenient, but her account of the night she was raped is more believable than Bruce Lehrmann’s version of events, court hears.

Justice Michael Lee said Brittany Higgins’ evidence in regards to the rape ‘does not strike me as inherently implausible – unlike the account of Mr Lehrmann’. Picture: News Corp

Brittany Higgins is a “complex” witness who told organised “untruths” when convenient, but her account of the night she was raped is more believable than Bruce Lehrmann’s version of events, the Federal Court has heard.

In delivering his landmark judgment in a defamation case brought by Mr Lehrmann against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson, Justice Michael Lee found Ms Higgins made “false representations” when giving statements to journalists, and “selectively curated material” on her phone before handing it over to the Australian Federal Police.

He also found she gave evidence “contrary to the facts” when compiling a deed against the Commonwealth, claiming her rape allegations were mishandled by government officials.

Mr Lehrmann last year sued Ten and 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. Mr Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence, and claimed no sexual assault occurred between the pair.

Ms Higgins gave evidence at trial for more than four days, detailing the night she was raped and the events surrounding it. Justice Lee on Monday found Mr Lehrmann, on the balance of probabilities, raped Ms Higgins.

In describing Ms Higgins’ evidence, Justice Lee found she made statements that were “contrary to the facts” when compiling a claim against the Commonwealth that ultimately resulted in her receiving a $2.445m payout.

Those untruths included that Ms Higgins’ chief of staff, Fiona Brown, rebuffed her request to view the CCTV footage from the night of the rape, and that Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds “did not engage with Ms Higgins at all” during the 2019 election campaign.

“The relevant issue is not whether Ms Higgins made representations in a manner consistent with her evidence, but rather whether Ms Higgins made representations contrary to the facts,” he said. “It is evident that several things being alleged were untrue.”

Justice Lee questioned Ms Higgins’ evidence about a photo of a large bruise on her leg which was supplied to Ten as evidence of the rape as part of her interview on The Project.

While she told Wilkinson the bruise was caused by Mr Lehrmann pinning her leg down with his, when asked about the bruise under cross-examination, she conceded it could have been caused at another point in the night.

Justice Lee said it was “odd” the original photo, despite its “obvious importance”, was not shared with police in 2019, and that the metadata of the image was never produced.

He said it was “unlikely” Brittany Higgins had “genuine confusion” about the cause of a large bruise on her leg, given the way she and her partner, David Sharaz, “deployed” the image in 2021 for media interviews.

“What is equally odd are the singular circumstances by which Ms Higgins’ phone was ‘completely wiped’ and her photos had disappeared from her iCloud records, and yet the bruise photograph and some other limited material survived, allowing it to be deployed by Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz to lend verisimilitude to the account she gave to Network 10,” he said.

He later found: “As to the bruise, I fall well short of being satisfied that Mr Lehrmann placed his leg against either of Ms Higgins’ legs so forcefully as to cause a large bruise.”

Justice Lee said any inconsistencies in statements made by Ms Higgins shortly after the rape occurred in 2019 are consistent “with the conduct of a genuine victim of sexual assault struggling to process what happened, seeking to cope, and working through her options”.

However, he said since 2021, Ms Higgins has made false representations to journalists, sometimes told untruths “when it suited her” and “selectively curated material on her phone prior to giving it to the AFP”.

“It will be fair to describe her as a complex and in several respects unsatisfactory witness,” he said. “Nuance is required in evaluating her evidence and any contentious and uncorroborated aspect needs to be scrutinised warily.”

While Justice Lee said Ms Higgins’ evidence should be “approached with great care”, he said her evidence in regards to the rape “does not strike me as inherently implausible – unlike the account of Mr Lehrmann”.

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