Law costs ‘force’ Brittany Higgins to sell French home
Brittany Higgins says she has been forced to sell her house in France as ‘the unspeakably high price’ of speaking out on sexual assault in her defamation battle against former defence minister Linda Reynolds.
Brittany Higgins says she has been forced to sell her house in France as “the unspeakably high price” of speaking out on sexual assault in her defamation battle against former defence minister Linda Reynolds.
Ms Higgins is believed to have bought the house last year for about $600,000, raising questions about what has happened to the rest of the $2.4m compensation payout from the commonwealth.
Her lawyers have told the court she has less than $10,000 in assets, outside whatever is left in the “Brittany Higgins Protective Trust” set up to hold the payout.
The announcement Ms Higgins is selling her home in Lunas, in the south of France, comes just days after a court ordered she must reveal details of the trust to Senator Reynolds.
The Liberal MP wants to ensure that if she wins the defamation case, she is able to access any assets in the trust still held by her former staffer.
After the $1.9m Ms Higgins says she was left with from the compensation payment after taxes and legal fees, there would have been up to $1.3m left after the purchase of the five-bedroom home in France.
Last week, Senator Reynolds’ lawyers told the West Australian Supreme Court Ms Higgins enjoyed a “sudden splurge of spending” after she secured a commonwealth payout, including taking her then-boyfriend and now-husband, David Sharaz on a holiday to the Maldives.
The couple have also holidayed elsewhere in Europe and were married in June at luxury venue The Valley Estate on the Gold Coast, behind a strict wall of security in the Currumbin Valley, at a reported cost of more than $100,000.
Ms Higgins’s gown was designed by Paolo Sebastian, whose creations retail for up to $30,000.
This month, Ms Higgins revealed she was expecting her first child with Mr Sharaz. Announcing the pregnancy on Instagram, she said she was “beyond excited” and posted a picture of knitted childrens’ overalls and two blue socks on a washing line. “Can’t wait to meet you,” she wrote.
In a statement to news.com.au on Monday, Ms Higgins said she had relocated to France “to heal and escape the online attacks she received, particularly in the wake of the Channel 7 Spotlight program.’’
“This will be Brittany’s third court case and one of numerous legal processes surrounding her rape at Parliament House,” the statement said.
“The legal costs have already amounted to well over $1m and will continue to grow with the defamation action brought about by Senator Reynolds.
“The price of speaking out about sexual assault remains unspeakably high. Brittany is now forced to sell her home in order to defend herself again.”
Senator Reynolds has previously been at pains to point out that her legal action is over social media posts she claims implied she tried to cover up her former staffer’s alleged rape and does not question that the rape occurred.
Earlier this year, judge Michael Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, Bruce Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins at Parliament House in 2019, but Senator Reynolds was not involved in a cover-up.
Mr Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence and is appealing the decision.
Ms Higgins has been travelling between France and Perth in recent months as she approaches the August 2 court date for the defamation trial. If the action goes to trial and she loses, her costs and those of Senator Reynolds would almost certainly exceed $1m.
Last week Chief Justice Quinlan echoed previous judges who have been involved in the matter in again calling for the parties to find a way to resolve the dispute before it goes to trial.
“I do not want to sound like King Canute trying to hold back the tide but it is not too late for all parties … to take this out of the hands of the court,” he said.
Senator Reynolds’s lawyer, Martin Bennett, argued that Ms Higgins may have deliberately created the trust to quarantine the funds from current or future creditors, in an act that could allow a court to find the protections of the trust should fall away. That amounted to an attempt to “defraud future creditors”.
Rachael Young SC, representing Ms Higgins, told the court the senator’s application was both “speculative and premature”.
She said it could not be argued that Senator Reynolds was a likely potential creditor of Ms Higgins at the time the trust had been created, given the social media post at the centre of the defamation claim had not been made.
Mr Bennett argued it was reasonably foreseeable at the time the trust was set up that Ms Higgins could face creditor claims from the commonwealth, publisher Penguin Random House (which had paid her an advance as part of book deal), and Mr Lehrmann.
He said Senator Reynolds’s main concerns about the settlement payout were around the decision-making of the commonwealth in the matter.
Senator Reynolds has made a complaint to the National Anti-Corruption Commission about the compensation payment.
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