What really happened the night Brittany Higgins was raped
It started at a pub on the Kingston foreshore. For the first time, Justice Michael Lee has provided a detailed timeline of the events on the night he found Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins.
It started at a pub on the Kingston foreshore in Canberra.
There, a nervous Brittany Higgins would meet her new colleagues for a few drinks. Among them, Bruce Lehrmann, who a Federal Court judge on Monday found would later take her back to Parliament House and rape her on the couch of Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds.
For the first time, Justice Michael Lee has provided a detailed timeline of the events on March 23, 2019 as part of a landmark defamation judgment finding Network 10 did not defame Mr Lehrmann when airing Ms Higgins’ sexual assault allegations.
Ms Higgins arrived at The Dock hotel at 7.19pm, and greeted a group of about eight people, including her colleagues Lauren Gain and Nikita Irvine. About 8.39pm, Mr Lehrmann arrived along with fellow Liberal staffer Austin Wenke.
Ms Higgins consumed 11 drinks while at The Dock, including two bought for her by Mr Lehrmann and a third which he handed to her. At 11.50pm, she picks up and skolls a spirit-based drink, which Mr Lehrmann “actively encouraged her” to consume.
Mr Lehrmann has long claimed his interactions with Ms Higgins on the night in question were “minimal”.
A plan was made for a smaller group – Mr Lehrmann, Ms Higgins, Ms Gain and Mr Wenke – to go to 80s themed nightclub, 88mph, around midnight.
“It is not entirely clear, but I think it is highly likely that Ms Higgins had at least two and possibly more shots at 88mph given the context of the earlier drinking … Mr Lehrmann’s encouragement of the drinking, and the solecism of taking the benefit of shouting and not reciprocating,” Justice Lee wrote in his judgment.
“I am fortified in this view given that the group stayed in 88mph for a period in excess of an hour and a half.”
At the club, Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins “hooked up”, Justice Lee said.
“As Ms Gain recalled, they were ‘quite touchy with one another’ and ‘his hands (were) on her thighs and her hands (were) on his thighs’ and they engaged in a mutually passionate kiss,” he wrote.
“Mr Lehrmann was acting upon his attraction to Ms Higgins, and the less than sober Ms Higgins was sufficiently uninhibited to be a not unwilling participant in the level of intimacy Ms Gain described.”
At about 1.30pm, the group decided it was time to leave. Mr Wenke and Ms Gain shared an Uber or a taxi as they lived in a similar direction. Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins shared a separate car.
“I am satisfied that regardless of whether there was ever any settled initial plan to share an Uber home, at some stage, and with the acquiescence of the inebriated Ms Higgins, the plan became for the Uber to go to Parliament House following what Mr Lehrmann had said about whisky,” Justice Lee said.
“Needless to say, based on this finding (and even on the evidence she gave at the trial), the representations made by Ms Higgins … that it was without “agreement” between Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins that Mr Lehrmann got into the taxi and directed it to stop at Parliament House are incorrect.”
At this point in time, Mr Lehrmann was sexually attracted to Ms Higgins, Justice Lee said. He was a man that had already acted unfaithfully towards his girlfriend – having kissed Ms Higgins at 88mph – and had “no scruples about doing so again.”
He “likely” wanted to continue to be intimate with Ms Higgins, Justice Lee said, and “human experience suggests what he then wanted to happen is not exactly shrouded in mystery”.
Justice Lee said Mr Lehrmann could not take Ms Higgins back to his own home – for obvious reasons – and knew that the best place he could be alone with her was Senator Reynolds’ office. He said Mr Lehrmann was further enticed by the presence of whisky in the ministerial suite.
“Commonsense suggests that it is obvious there was one dominant thought running through the mind of Mr Lehrmann as he was approaching Parliament House, and it was nothing to do with French submarine contracts,” Justice Lee said.
Justice Lee said Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins were alone in the ministerial suite for 40 minutes between 1.48 and 2.30am.
During this time, Mr Lehrmann did not answer six telephone calls from his girlfriend between 2.16 and 2.18am.
Despite Mr Lehrmann’s longstanding denials that he did not have sex with Ms Higgins in Parliament House, Justice Lee found otherwise.
He found Mr Lehrmann was “hell bent” on having sex with Ms Higgins after passionately kissing her in a Canberra nightclub, and was “so intent upon gratification” that he “did not care one way or the other whether Ms Higgins understood or consented”.
“I’m satisfied that it is more likely than not that Mr Lehrmann’s state of mind was such that he was so intent upon gratification to be indifferent to Ms Higgins consenting,” Justice Lee said.
At about 2.33am, Mr Lehrmann departed alone through the security gate and was collected by an Uber.
“Immediately after, or shortly after Mr Lehrmann left, Ms Higgins, having been affected by alcohol, fell into a very deep sleep on the couch in the suite in a state of undress,” Justice Lee found.
Given no one had seen Ms Higgins leave, a female security guard went upstairs to do a “welfare check” and, at about 4.20am, entered the suite yelling “security, hello security.”
She opened the door to the minister’s office, and saw Ms Higgins lying on her back on the couch in a state of undress. She saw Ms Higgins’ vagina, as her knees were up and slightly apart.
Ms Higgins opened her eyes, looked at the security guard, and rolled into the foetal position.
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