‘Prefer to silence victims’: Brittany Higgins blasts Linda Reynolds
Brittany Higgins has attacked former defence minister Linda Reynolds for suggesting it should be illegal for anyone who believes a crime has been committed to fail to report it to police.
Brittany Higgins has blasted former defence minister Linda Reynolds for suggesting it should be illegal for anyone who believes a crime has been committed to fail to report it to police, saying “instead of solving the problem, there are people who would prefer to just silence victims”.
In an increasingly bitter public stoush between the two women, Ms Higgins has claimed that the proposal by Senator Reynolds “completely undermines all the crucial work done by the #LetHerSpeak campaign and the #March4Justice movement.”
In a submission to the Sofronoff Inquiry, revealed by The Australian on Wednesday, Senator Reynolds argued that the ACT Crimes Act should be amended to deter individuals from using the media and/or Parliamentary forums in relation to an alleged criminal offence that ought properly be the subject of the criminal justice processes.
Senator Reynolds pointed to a section of the NSW Crimes Act that makes it an offence for anyone who knows or believes that a serious indictable offence has been committed and fails to report it to police.
On Thursday Ms Higgins, while not directly naming Senator Reynolds, posted an extract from the article on Twitter.
“Imagine being the person earnestly attempting to change the Crimes Act to make it illegal for alleged sexual assault survivors to talk about their lived experience? As opposed to, you know, reforming the justice system to actually prosecuting perpetrators,” Ms Higgins wrote.
The former political staffer has recently been in Geneva, Switzerland, where she interned at the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Ms Higgins alleges she was sexually assaulted by fellow Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann in Senator Reynolds parliamentary office in March 2019 – a claim he has vehemently denied.
Ms Higgins’ rebuke comes just two weeks after she claimed the Liberal MP “continues to harass me through the media and in the parliament”.
Ms Higgins posted on social media a series of newspaper headlines that she claimed originated “from a current Australian Senator who continues to harass me through the media and in the parliament”.
“This has been going on for years now. It is time to stop,” Ms Higgins said.
“My boss who has publicly apologised for mishandling my rape allegation. Who has had to publicly apologise after defaming me in the workplace. Who had a whole bunch of questionable conduct during my rape trial. Who is suing my fiance for a tweet.”
Senator Reynolds’ lawyers sent Ms Higgins a concerns notice – which is a -precursor to a defamation lawsuit – threatening legal action over the post.
Ms Higgins responded that she was “considering my legal options”.
Senator Reynolds is already suing Ms Higgins’ fiance, David Sharaz, for defamation over two tweets that he posted last year but had not been able to serve him with a summons.
Earlier this month she was granted permission by the court to allow service of the summons to be effected by email to Mr Sharaz’s personal email accounts, as well as to Ms Higgins’ lawyer.
Senator Reynolds has indicated she will refer Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to the new National Anti-Corruption Commission over the payment of more than $2.5m in compensation to her former staffer following Ms Higgins’ claims her allegations of rape were mishandled.
“The basis for the settlement and the reasons why the ¬Attorney-General barred me and Senator (Michaelia) Cash from defending serious allegations against us have not been explained to us or to the Australian people,” she said.
Mr Dreyfus has consistently refused to answer questions regarding Ms Higgins’ multi¬million-dollar payout, which was provided without the consultation of former senior Liberal ministers who were at the centre of her claims.
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