Linda Reynolds lawyers likely to seize on ‘cover-up’ findings ahead of Brittany Higgins defamation case

Justice Michael Lee found there was no evidence of anyone suggesting to Brittany Higgins to act in a way contrary to her own settled, informed and communicated judgment.

Liberal senator Linda Reynolds. Picture: Colin Murty

The Bruce Lehrmann decision is set to have significant implications for the other defamation action stemming from the saga, with lawyers for Senator Linda Reynolds poised to seize on the findings that her office was not involved in a “cover-up” of the incident.

Senator Reynolds, who will ­retire from politics at the next election, is suing her former staffer Brittany Higgins and her fiance David Sharaz over the comments they made on social media about the Western Australian politician and her response to what Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found was Ms Higgins’ rape.

Lawyers for all three are likely to be poring over Justice Lee’s decision, but Senator Reynolds’ team in particular are likely to seize on the judge’s conclusions about the response of the senator and her office.

Justice Lee’s judgment was critical of suggestions that ­Senator Reynolds and her former chief of staff Fiona Brown had been ­involved in an attempted cover-up of the rape.

He wrote that former The ­Project host Lisa Wilkinson had been willing to “double down” on an ­allegation that Ms Brown and Senator Reynolds were active participants in a systemic cover-up of alleged criminal conduct during the trial “when, upon any fair review of the available ­material, the basis for such a grave allegation is infirm”.

He also found that the evidence did not support the notion that Ms Higgins was somehow shunned by the minister in Perth in the wake of the incident.

“Whatever Ms Higgins may or may not have ‘felt’ while in Perth, there is no evidence that anyone was suggesting to her to not ­proceed to act in a way contrary to her own settled, informed and communicated judgment as to what was best for her (let alone pressuring or threatening her to do so). She was not being ‘forced’ to do anything as that concept is properly understood,” Justice Lee wrote.

“To the extent one can understand what ‘checking up’ entailed, it is a not an intervention that could be relied upon as amounting to the serious wrongdoing of obstructing Ms Higgins pursuing a complaint of sexual assault.”

The finding that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann did rape Ms Higgins in Senator Reynolds’ parliamentary office is unlikely to be enough to make the defamation action from the senator towards her former staffer and her fiance go away.

Whether Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins was not at the heart of Senator Reynolds’ defamation suit, with the case focused on the comments Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz made about the senator.

Justice Lee’s findings included a list of several things alleged by Ms Higgins that were “untrue”, with many of those relating to her alleged treatment by Senator Reynolds’ office and Ms Brown.

Justice Lee found Ms Higgins did not specify that she had been raped in her first two meetings with Ms Brown in the wake of the incident. He also wrote that he agreed with Ms Brown’s description that she did her “professional best with what was given” to her.

“If one wants to get a real ­reflection of the contemporaneous 2019 views of Ms Higgins, well before the attitude of Ms Higgins towards Ms Brown evolved in 2021 consistently with the development of the broader narrative of a cover-up, they are reflected in her text message of 7 June 2019: ‘I wanted to say this in person but – I cannot overstate how much I’ve valued your support and advice throughout this period. You’ve been absolutely incredible and I’m so appreciative.’,” Justice Lee wrote.

Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz travelled to Perth from their new home in France last month to ­attend court-ordered mediation in the hope of resolving the defamation matters with Senator Reynolds, but those talks broke down and the matter is scheduled to go to trial later this year.

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