Brittany Higgins’ posting draws ire of Linda Reynolds’ lawyer

Brittany Higgins has been ­accused in court of ‘extra­ordinarily inappropriate’ behaviour after posting a provocative social media post just as Ms Higgins’ ex-boss Linda Reynolds took the stand in their defamation battle.

Senator Linda Reynolds departs the Supreme Court in Perth with lawyer Martin Bennett on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Sharon Smith

Brittany Higgins has been ­accused in court of “extra­ordinarily inappropriate” behaviour after posting a provocative social media post just as former defence minister and Ms Higgins’ ex-boss Linda Reynolds took the stand in their defamation battle.

Senator Reynolds, in an emotional first day of testimony, revealed she could not bear returning to Parliament House as a result of the rape saga.

But just as she finished the first of an expected five days of ­testimony, her lawyer, Martin Bennett, criticised Ms Higgins in the West Australian Supreme Court on Monday afternoon over an Instagram post.

Mr Bennett said the post, which went online as his client began her testimony, would be added to the senator’s defamation claim against her former staffer. He described it as “extraordinarily inappropriate” and “aggravating”.

Ms Higgins’ post, which she captioned “Pertinent reading”, linked to a book titled How many more women? How the law silences women.

Ms Higgins has not been in court for the trial so far, and has been watching the trial over a livestream in France.

Earlier on Monday, her lawyer, Rachael Young SC, said Ms Higgins was on her way to Paris to have an affidavit sworn at the Australian embassy.

An Instagram story posted by Brittany Higgins on Monday during the second day of the defamation trial brought against her by Linda Reynolds.

On an eventful day of proceedings, Senator Reynolds ­detailed how health conditions that emerged in the wake of the rape scandal had caused her to give up plans for another term as a senator. “My initial intent when I was preselected at the last election (was) to do another six years which would see me out to 65,” she said.

She said that when preselections began earlier this year, she opted against running for another term as she could not face being back in Parliament House.

“I wasn’t in a position, I just didn’t feel like I could be in that building,” she said.

“Since the last 3½ years, my health, my mental health and physical health, has not been great, to put it mildly.”

She said she had a condition called microvascular disease and, when she got stressed, small veins around her heart contracted and spasmed and gave her the symptoms of a heart attack. “What I’ve found is going back to Parliament House, particularly the Senate chamber, I’m a ­frequent flyer at the nurses’ ­station,” she said.

Senator Reynolds also discussed the meeting held with her chief of staff, Fiona Brown, and Ms Higgins in her ministerial ­office just days after the alleged rape. At that stage, Senator Rey­nolds said, she knew only that Ms Higgins and her alleged rapist, Bruce Lehrmann, had breached security by entering the suite in the early hours of a Saturday morning, and that Ms Higgins had told Ms Brown she could remember Mr Lehrmann being on top of her.

That meeting was held in the same office where Ms Higgins was allegedly raped.

Senator Reynolds said she told Ms Higgins her job was safe, and she and Ms Brown would support her if she chose to talk to the Australian Federal Police.

“She thanked me. She was grateful she was keeping her job,” Senator Reynolds said.

“Other ministers would have sacked them both but I thought she deserved a second chance.”

She said she chose the office for the meeting given it was the only private area in the suite, and because she was not explicitly aware then that Ms Higgins had been allegedly raped there.

Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial was aborted after he pleaded not guilty and he is appealing against Federal Court judge Michael Lee’s civil finding in a defamation case he brought against the Ten Network and presenter Lisa Wilkinson that he had, on the balance of probabilities, raped Ms Higgins.

Earlier, Ms Young, for Ms Higgins, spelt out the series of actions by Senator Reynolds that they say show she mishandled the aftermath of Ms Higgins’s rape allegations. Ms Young also accused Senator Reynolds of “harassing and retraumatising” Ms Higgins after the senator and her lawyer described the aftermath of the alleged rape as a “fairytale”.

Mr Bennett, during his opening address on Friday, said “every fairytale needs a villain” and Ms Higgins and her now-husband David Sharaz cast Senator Reynolds in that role when they alleged there had been a political cover-up of the incident.

Ms Young noted that Senator Reynolds had accepted the truth of Ms Higgins’ claim that she was raped. “This matter is not, and has never been, a fairytale. For the senator through her oral and written opening to suggest it may be so is misplaced, harassing and retraumatising,” she said.

Ms Young said there was evidence Senator Reynolds did know, or should have known, the couch in her office was the scene of Ms Higgins’ alleged rape at the time she met the staffer in the same office to discuss the incident. She said she would argue that Ms Higgins was given little choice about what to do in her role after the alleged rape, saying she had to choose between ­leaving her support network and joining the senator’s re-election campaign in Perth or going to join family on the Gold Coast, where her future employment prospects were less clear.

Ms Young also tendered as evidence text messages by Ms Higgins to her then-boyfriend Ben Dillaway when she was in Perth working on the re-election campaign in the months after the alleged rape. While Mr Bennett produced multiple text messages last Friday in which Ms Higgins detailed the “fun” she was having in Perth at the time, Ms Young said her messages showed the difficulties she was going through at the time she was sent to Perth

One message read: “I’m not sure why but I just feel super angry at the moment. It’s probably misdirected and should be aimed at Bruce, but I’m so pissed at the people in the party.”

Another message described the situation as “beyond shitty”, with Ms Higgins saying “I’m like ??? I was literally assaulted in your office and I collectively maybe took four days off/was offered jack shit in terms of help”.

The senator’s engagement with the media in the years since the incident, including The Australian and Channel 7’s Spotlight program, as well as her text messages to the lawyer representing Ms Higgins’ alleged rapist were also cited by Ms Young in her argument that Senator Reynolds had in fact harassed her client.

In the first of them, Senator Reynolds wrote: “Hi, do you have the daily transcripts and if so are you able to provide to my ­lawyer?”

Ms Young said Senator Rey­nolds tried to obtain transcripts from the trial despite having been told by her lawyer not to do so.

The second message suggested barrister Steven Whybrow look at the messages sent between Ms Higgins and the senator’s former media adviser Nicky Hamer.

The text message read: “Also, if you have text messages between Brittany and Nicky Hamer, they may be revealing.”

Ms Young said the second text showed Senator Reynolds was acting in a partisan way. “When your honour sees the context of it, it can only be seen as a suggestion that might help the accused and not Ms Higgins,” she said.

She said Senator Reynolds’s description of Ms Higgins as “lying cow” – made when Ms Higgins first went public with her allegations – was further proof of the senator’s harassment.