Lehrmann lawyer’s change of tack on Brittany Higgins interrogation
Brittany Higgins is set to face a gruelling interrogation as Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer pushes to play a covert recording she made of a government minister.
Brittany Higgins is likely to face a gruelling interrogation on Tuesday over the account she gave last week of her alleged rape by Bruce Lehrmann, with the trial judge in the hard-fought defamation case adamant this should be her final day under cross-examination.
Last week, Higgins gave Network 10’s barrister, Matt Collins KC, a detailed and explicit account of the alleged sexual assault by Lehrmann on a couch in the office of then defence industries minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019. But Lehrmann’s barrister, Steven Whybrow SC, was not buying any of it.
Whybrow, who defended Lehrmann at his criminal trial and cross-examined Higgins then, confounded many observers by first targeting the inconsistencies in her story; “picking off the low-hanging fruit”, as one put it.
He spent much of his cross-examination picking apart Higgins’ claims about a photograph of a bruise alleged to have been inflicted during the assault and the state of her dress when discovered by a security guard the next morning. That approach will change on Tuesday when the court sits again, having taken a break on Monday.
Whybrow will likely cut to the chase to make his client’s case that nothing happened in that office on that night.
He doesn’t have much time.
Collins complained to the judge on Friday that Higgins had already been under cross-examination for two full days and would face a third this week.
“It is becoming oppressive – it’s longer than the period Mr Lehrmann was in the witness box and she’s just a witness,” he said.
Justice Michael Lee agreed there was “some force in that” and told Whybrow he would extend sitting hours if necessary to make sure his cross-examination was finished by the end of the day.
The defence has already signalled it will object to several areas Whybrow wants to traverse.
Whybrow wants to play a secret tape Higgins recorded of a conversation with former minister Michaelia Cash.
Higgins is adamant Cash learned about the alleged rape in October 2019, despite the Liberal senator denying she had any knowledge of it until 2021. Higgins has told the court she believed her former boss’s attempts to “check in” on her wellbeing were “nefarious”.
The defence says Lehrmann hasn’t called Cash to give evidence so his counsel shouldn’t be allowed to cross-examine Higgins on it.
Last week Whybrow began questioning Higgins about the aftermath of Lehrmann’s criminal trial, when she walked out of court and made a speech many lawyers felt was prejudicial to any future trial. “You said a number of things, I would suggest, that had the capacity to adversely undermine the fairness of any future trial,” he put to her.
At that point Sue Chrysanthou SC, counsel for Lisa Wilkinson, leapt to her feet to object and Higgins was asked to leave the courtroom. Chrysanthou and Collins questioned the relevance of the speech to the defamation proceedings and the central issue of whether Lehrmann raped Higgins.
Lee seemed to have momentarily forgotten he had barred Wilkinson from involving herself in matters that didn’t relate to the qualified privilege defence being claimed by her client, namely that the TV presenter had acted reasonably in the way she prepared the story.
The expensive silk will have to cool her heels for another week while the trial focuses on Ten’s truth defence – that Lehrmann did rape Higgins – with witnesses including Higgins’ former partner Ben Dillaway, fellow staffers who were with the pair earlier in the night when they went for drinks, and the security guard who found Higgins naked and asleep on the sofa in Reynolds’ office.
The ruling leaves the voluble Chrysanthou in the unusual and uncomfortable position of not being able to speak her piece – in the unlikely event she heeds the warnings.
