He tried to kiss me weeks earlier: Higgins

Brittany Higgins’ accused rapist made a pass and tried to kiss her weeks before he allegedly raped her on a couch in a ministerial office, a court has heard.

Brittany Higgins, centre, leaves the ACT Magistrates Court in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Brittany Higgins’ accused rapist made a pass and tried to kiss her as they were leaving a Canberra pub weeks before he allegedly raped her on a couch in a ministerial office, a court has heard.

Ms Higgins, 27, entered the witness box for the first time inside courtroom three in the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday to give testimony on the second day of the trial of former ministerial staffer Bruce Lehrmann over the alleged assault.

Ms Higgins said Mr Lehrmann tried to kiss her after a work dinner with colleagues at the Kingston Hotel as they were leaving, about a week after she started working alongside him in the ­office of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.

“I rebuffed the kiss mostly out of shock – I wasn’t anticipating it,” Ms Higgins said. “We didn’t have an exchange after the attempt. I think he was embarrassed.”

Mr Lehrmann – who has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex without consent and recklessness towards whether Ms Higgins was consenting – looked at her as she entered the witness stand.

The court was shown CCTV of Ms Higgins drinking with colleagues at The Dock bar on the evening of the alleged assault on March 22 in 2019. She is seen wearing a long white dress and getting progressively more drunk, stumbling and appearing unsteady on her feet.

“I’ve seen myself stumble a bit and I’m swaying so it’s (the level of intoxication) is getting pretty high,” Ms Higgins told the court.

Mr Lehrmann arrived at The Dock about 8.45pm with another colleague. Ms Higgins is seen skolling one last drink at The Dock before she, Mr Lehrmann and a couple of others leave and head to the 88mph club.

In her second police interview – on May 26, 2021 – Ms Higgins said she couldn’t recall how she got to the ’80s-themed venue and her memory was “patchy”.

“I don’t even have a full memory of leaving The Dock,” she said.

Ms Higgins said she didn’t recall how many shots she consumed at the 88mph club only that they “kept coming”. Ms Higgins couldn’t recall kissing Mr Lehrmann, which the court heard was witnessed by a mutual friend, at the nightclub but said she trusted a “sober mind” over her own.

Bruce Lehrmann, right, arrives for the second day of his trial at the Magistrates Court in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

She remembered sitting in a corner booth between colleagues and Mr Lehrmann, as well as dancing by herself at some point.

Ms Higgins also remembered falling while going up the stairs as they left, scraping her knee.

Mr Lehrmann helped her up and spoke with bouncers before the pair got into an Uber or a taxi outside the bar.

“I didn’t feel together. I felt messy. I knew I was really intoxicated. It was weird,” she said.

“I drink socially but don’t normally get obliterated. It felt like obliteration. I was at 100.”

Ms Higgins said she didn’t remember what time they got into the taxi or any conversation with Mr Lehrmann other than him saying he had to pick something up from work.

She said that during sitting weeks she would arrive at Parliament House about 5am and leave at 11pm and didn’t think it unreasonable that a staffer would need to return to the building after hours because “you feel like work is your home.

“Which was why I was so obliging,” she said.

Ms Higgins said she was confused about how they gained access to the front gate, the ministerial entrance and other parts of the building without their swipe cards. She said Mr Lehrmann told her to stay quiet as they went through security.

Ms Higgins said she remembers “signing something” at the front entrance. However, when detectives showed her the parliamentary sign-in book from that night, it was not her handwriting.

Once the pair gained access to Senator Reynolds’ office, Ms Higgins said she sat by herself on a windowsill ledge looking out at the courtyard.

She said she didn’t know where Mr Lehrmann was but next remembered waking to him allegedly raping her.

“As soon as I came to, I was crying because I couldn’t get up,” Ms Higgins said.

Ms Higgins said she was jammed into the corner of the couch with Mr Lehrmann’s knees pushing into both of her legs as he held himself up on the couch, looking over her but not at her.

 

She said Mr Lehrmann was grunting and sweaty, which made her think the alleged assault had been going on for a while and that he was close to finishing.

Ms Higgins said she repeatedly said “no” and felt like a “strange afterthought” for Mr Lehrmann.

“It didn’t feel like it was about me at all,” she said.

Ms Higgins said the alleged intercourse was rough and forceful and she felt “trapped and not human”.

Ms Higgins said she believed Mr Lehrmann finished but wasn’t sure whether he used a condom.

“I felt like he finished in me but I’m not 100 per cent sure,” she said. “I remember he got off me and getting dressed.

“He looked at me, there was a strange moment of eye contact. He didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything. He left the room.”

Ms Higgins said she passed out on the couch and the next thing she remembered was a female security guard yelling into the office about 8am, asking if she was okay.

She replied she was “fine” and later took an Uber home where she spent most of the weekend in her room crying.

In a text message to her friend and former boyfriend, Ben Dillaway, on March 26, Ms Higgings said something “really bad’’ had happened in Senator Reynolds’ office and said she was worried about her job.

She told him about going to Senator Reynolds’ office with Mr Lehrmann. “I don’t remember getting there at all, vaguely remember Bruce being there and then I woke up in the morning half dressed by myself in the Ministers office on Saturday morning.’’

Mr Dillaway asked if she had hooked up with Mr Lehrmann “or did he take advantage of you?’’

“Yeah, it just Bruce and I from what I recall,’’ Ms Higgings replied. “I was barely lucid. I don’t really feel like it was consensual at all. I just think if he thought it was okay, why would he just leave me there like that.”

“So he f..ked you?” Mr Dillaway replied. “I hope you’re okay. This is pretty serious horrible stuff. You probably need to report this.’’

“Fiona of CoS knows. She followed up on the security report about it.’’ Ms Higgins said.

Brittany Higgins, right, outside the court on Wednesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

The court also heard from the recorded police interview that while Ms Higgins did not visit a GP after the alleged assault or take the morning-after pill, she performed a pregnancy test – bought from a Perth convenience store – some weeks later during the 2019 election. “I was slow on the uptake processing everything,” she said. “It was me checking because I was late and stressed.”

Ms Higgins eventually visited a doctor “some time after the election” and was prescribed anxiety medication “to help me cope”.

On the Monday after the alleged rape, Ms Higgins said Mr Lehrmann bought her a coffee. She said she tried to “overcompensate” for what had happened to make “everything normal” again. “He didn’t seem ashamed or upset or anything,” Ms Higgins said.

“It didn’t seem like something he wanted to address.”

The next day, Senator Reynolds’ chief of staff, Fiona Brown, arrived in Canberra and called in Mr Lehrmann for a meeting.

He emerged after 45 minutes, Ms Higgins said, and immediately packed up his desk and left.

Ms Higgins was then called into a meeting with Ms Brown, which she said felt disciplinary and “like she was in trouble”.

“I knew I’d done nothing wrong and hadn’t consented (but) I felt stressed that I was going to be fired,” she said.

Ms Higgins said she was “full and frank” and verbalised the alleged assault although stopped short of saying the word “rape”.

“As soon as I identified it as a rape, and that I didn’t consent to any of that, I started to cry and that’s when the gears shifted and it became less about me and more political,” she said.

“She handed me the EAP brochure and told me to call the number. I did but it was a two-month wait to speak to psychologists.”

Brittany Higgins, centre, says Bruce Lehrmann tried to kiss her after a work dinner with colleagues at the Kingston Hotel. Picture: Gary Ramage

Ms Higgins said she broke down in tears and Ms Brown sent her home for the rest of the day.

Over the ensuing weeks, Ms Higgins confided – to varying degrees – in colleagues as well as family and friends about the alleged assault. During the recorded police interview, Ms Higgins said she came to work in Senator Reynolds’ office after reports her former boss, then-defence industry minister Steven Ciobo, would not contest the 2019 election.

Ms Higgins said she went to a “quasi job interview” with Nicole Hamer, then-senior adviser to Senator Reynolds, at the Kingston Hotel on March 2, in 2019.

She said this was the first time she met Mr Lehrmann.

Ms Higgins said Senator Reynolds’ office was informal and the staffers, all under the age of 28, had been “left alone for their egos to run around”.

As well, there was tension between the new and old staff. “Everyone was trying to cement their place and be the most senior adviser,” she said. “I was the lackey running around.”

Ms Higgins there was an argument between advisers over the location of the fridge and said it was her job to lug it between locations decided on by the warring sides of the office.

She said Mr Lehrmann had put three desks together to stake out his space in the office and she saw him as the most senior adviser whereas she felt she was “pretty disposable”. “The disparity between me and him was huge,” she said. “I was just the new admin girl, so I was pretty disposable.”

Ms Higgins said she did most of the “grunt work” in the office and Mr Lehrmann would often instruct her to complete tasks outside her role. “He was above me in station so I just did what was asked.”

The trial continues.