Social media posts by Brittany Higgins’s husband David Sharaz have been described as “creepy” and “stalky” by Linda Reynolds.
Senator Reynolds is suing both Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz for defamation, although Mr Sharaz has already said he will not be contesting the case due to a lack of resources.
Continuing her testimony on Tuesday, Senator Reynolds said various social media posts by Mr Sharaz has left her feeling angry, depressed and frustrated.
“They’re incredibly hurtful. They are making allegations I know are not true,” she said.
“It’s not only distressing for me. In my mind they use their Instagram posts and Facebook as a press release. They will put out a tweet or an Insta post, then the media pick it up really quickly and run the story. What they’ve said then becomes a story that is published nationally.”
She said one post by Mr Sharaz, in which he said “I see you”, had left her upset and “a bit creeped out”.
“When someone says that, ‘Linda I see you’, apart from the stalky nature of saying something like that … it’s that subtle reminder of the lies they had been propagating for a long time then,” she said.
Reynolds vs Higgins: Reynolds 'creeped out' by Sharaz's 'stalky' posts
Continuing her testimony, Linda Reynolds said various social media posts by Brittany Higgins’s husband David Sharaz had left her feeling angry, depressed and frustrated.
Welcome to The Australian's rolling coverage of Senator Linda Reynolds' defamation action against her former staffer, Brittany Higgins.
Updates
Social media posts by Sharaz 'creepy' and 'stalky'
Reynolds addresses infamous 'lying cow' comment
Linda Reynolds has addressed her infamous description of Brittany Higgins as a “lying cow”, describing how she felt sick, angry and hurt when watching her former staffer appear on The Project.
She watched the 2021 interview alongside staffers inside her ministerial suite at Parliament House, and it was later revealed by The Australian that the senator had called Ms Higgins a “lying cow” while watching the interview.
Senator Reynolds said she did not recall using those exact words but accepted she had said them.
“At some point, I did out of frustration and anger…. I have no recollection of the words I actually used at the time but I knew I was very frustrated and angry at what I knew were the lies,” she said.
Her chief of staff Alex Kelton and another staffer approached the senator in her office days later to tell her they had received a complaint about Senator Reynolds’ use of the phrase “lying cow”. Senator Reynolds told how she immediately called a staff meeting.
“Alex got all the staff together and I addressed the issue straight away with them. I said I’d been told that I said this, I apologised if I had caused anybody any offence, I talked about what a difficult time it was for me and the staff as well, I apologised and acknowledged that it was a difficult time,” she said.
“I couldn’t remember the exact words, but that if anyone needed any support … the phone calls, the trolling, what was happening in the senate and the house of reps was quite brutal.”
Ms Higgins issued Senator Reynolds with a concerns notice over the incident, with the senator eventually settling the matter and making a $10,000 donation to a Canberra women’s shelter.
Ms Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young SC has indicated that the “lying cow” episode will form part of their defence, arguing that it was evidence of the senator’s mishandling of Ms Higgins’ rape claim.
Reynolds broke down inside Parliament House amid Higgins fallout
Linda Reynolds has described the moment she broke down inside Parliament House amid the fallout from Brittany Higgins going public with her rape allegations.
She told the court how, when reading out a question from another portfolio in the senate, she became increasingly distressed, started feeling “incredible” heart pain, and could not longer read.
“I was standing there in incredible pain. I’d stood up every single day, I’d faced down the questions, I just couldn’t go on. I couldn’t read what was on the piece of paper,” she said.
She said she felt her knees buckling, left the senate and entered the antechamber for senators, where she sat on a couch and “just started sobbing uncontrollably”.
“I was literally completely and utterly incoherent.”
She said Senator Dean Smith came and took her to his nearby office, before then-prime minister Scott Morrison came to see her.
“Scott came in, he’d come straight over from question time. He kicked Dean out and was just fantastic. He talked with me, he was incredibly compassionate. He was sharing with me just how difficult it was for him, being accused of covering up a rape, and how difficult it was for his girls.”
Her heart pain then started to settle and she eventually stopped crying.
Soon after she was put in touch with a counsellor who continues to help her to this day.
“The thing in parliament is you never show weakness. No matter how tough things get, you’re expected to tough it out,” she said.
“I had this humiliation of collapsing in front of the nation.
“That’s the dirty little secret in Parliament House, that politicians are human beings as well. We don’t come in with a suit of armour that would protect us from things that would impact on any human being.”
Reynolds describes numerous errors in news.com.au article
Linda Reynolds has spoken of the mixed emotions she felt after Brittany Higgins went public with her rape allegations.
“It’s really hard to describe how I felt at the time because I was incredibly angry, I was incredibly hurt,” she said.
“She probably didn’t even realise this, but she couldn’t have picked a worse issue to bring me down. It’s such an abhorrent thing to say to any woman, that you’ve mistreated their rape allegation and that you have not only done that, but you have also covered it up.”
The senator described what she said were numerous errors of fact in the initial news.com.au article revealing Ms Higgins’ accusations, describing how her former staffer’s series of events differed dramatically from her recollection.
“I had very very mixed emotions. I was angry, I was angry at Brittany but I was also angry at myself and just wondering how we had got it so wrong. I had started thinking back about what cues we had missed. Her recollections were completely different to mine,” she said.
“I had no reason then or now to doubt her memories of rape. But everything else she said, I knew weren’t true. What had I missed for her to now think that was all true?”
The court has now taken a break for lunch and will resume at 2.15pm Perth time.
Reynolds 'felt sorry' for Higgins over news.com.au article
Linda Reynolds has now resumed giving testimony after taking an unscheduled break to deal with blood pressure issues.
While she said just before the break that issues around the Brittany Higgins–Bruce Lehrmann rape saga that Labor's threats to weaponise the allegations had "led to" Kimberley Kitching's death, her testimony has now moved on to the moment Senator Reynolds first read the news.com.au article that first made Ms Higgins' allegation public.
Senator Reynolds said she felt sick reading the article because much of it – such as Ms Higgins feeling forced to choose between going to the police or losing her job – "simply was not true".
But she said she also felt sorry for Ms Higgins while reading the story.
"As angry and upset as I was reading through this I also started feeling sorry for her," she said.
Reynolds links death of senator to Higgins saga
Linda Reynolds has asked for a break from giving testimony after saying that issues surrounding the Bruce Lehrmann–Brittany Higgins rape saga led to the death of Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching.
Senator Reynolds was granted an unscheduled break after she said a discussion of her final interactions with deceased Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching had triggered blood pressure issues.
She said the blood pressure issue was linked to a “particularly emotional point” in her testimony, “given that it led to Senator Kitching’s death”. She was then allowed to stand down.
Shortly before the break, Senator Reynolds had discussed how Senator Kitching had approached her during prayers in the senate chamber to warn her that Labor planned to “rain hell” on her and the government after they learned of the incident involving the 2019 alleged rape of Ms Higgins by Mr Lehrmann in Senator Reynolds’ parliamentary office.
“She came over to where I was sitting in the chamber, she said that she was really sorry but she had something to tell me and Labor knew about the incident in my office two years prior to that and they were going to rain hell on me and the government,” Senator Reynolds said.
“I was completely incredulous. I said to her why would anybody weaponise such an incident? I still can’t find the words to describe… even for Labor, and they pull some pretty nasty stunts, but this, I actually found it hard to believe.”
Senator Reynolds said Senator Kitching had the previous year received an anonymous letter from someone who worked in the building, making “a lot of allegations” about the mishandling of the situation within the building.
Senator Reynolds said the senator had decided to give the letter to the AFP.
Senator Reynolds said Senator Kitching had told her that Senator Penny Wong – now the foreign minister – was “incredibly angry” with her for handing the letter to the AFP, given Labor could have “weaponised” it. Senator Reynolds said she had no doubt that Senator Kithcing was angry and upset about Senator Wong’s position.
Senator Reynolds then stopped and asked for a break.
On Tuesday, Senator Reynolds told the court about how physical and mental health issues linked to the Higgins-Lehrmann saga had prompted her to abandon plans to seek another term in the senate. She said she no longer wanted to be in Parliament House.
Higgins thanked for hard work during 2019 election
Linda Reynolds used a birthday dinner during the 2019 election campaign to thank Brittany Higgins for her hard work.
A photograph from the dinner, held just months after Ms Higgins was allegedly raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann inside Senator Reynolds’ ministerial office, showed the senator and Ms Higgins sitting next to each other.
Senator Reynolds said she had thrown the dinner – which she paid for – as a means of bonding her team, which included long-term staff from the senator’s Perth office and several newer staff including Ms Higgins who had come from Canberra. She said she took the opportunity to thank Ms Higgins for the “great job” she had done working on the campaign.
“I went and sat next to her and we had a great chat. I thanked her for her great work, I was genuinely impressed with her,” Senator Reynolds said.
“She had thrown herself into the campaign, she genuinely loved campaigning, and she was really good. She had stepped up.”
Senator Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett used his opening address last week to highlight multiple text messages in which Ms Higgins expressed how much she was enjoying her time in Perth. She would later tell the commonwealth that she was left alone and isolated in a hotel room during her six weeks in Perth when she negotiated a $2.445 million payout.
Reynolds team in subpoena push over Higgins fundraiser
Linda Reynolds’ legal team is looking to subpoena the woman behind a push to raise funds for Brittany Higgins’ latest court battle.
Senator Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, on Tuesday morning made an application to subpoena Saxon Mullins, who yesterday launched an online fundraising campaign to raise money for Ms Higgins.
The fundraiser has already raised $23,636 of its $40,000 target.
The fundraising page said that despite the Federal Court finding last year that, on the balance of probabilities, Bruce Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins, Ms Higgins needed support “now more than ever”.
“Many hoped the judgment would mark the end of this legal saga, and Brittany would be free to move on and heal in private,” the fundraising page says.
“However, Brittany is now being sued for defamation by a former boss, over three social media postings made by her in mid-2023.”
The page says all monies raised would be held on trust by Ms Higgins’ Perth-based lawyer, Carmel Galati, and would go towards Ms Higgins’ ongoing medical and counselling costs, and the payment of any outstanding legal invoices.
Mr Bennett said the subpoena was seeking communications between Ms Mullins, Ms Higgins, Ms Higgins’ husband David Sharaz, Labor political adviser Emma Webster, and Ms Galati.
He said the page was an attempt to mis-characterise the nature of Senator Reynolds’ defamation proceedings against Ms Higgins, saying it attempted to characterise the action as Senator Reynolds seeking to silence a sex assault survivor.
Justice Paul Tottle will make a decision on the subpoena later today.
Reynolds to resume testimony against Higgins
Linda Reynolds will shortly resume her testimony in her defamation action against her former staffer Brittany Higgins, after an eventful first day in the stand.
Senator Reynolds is expected to continue giving her evidence in chief throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday, before she is cross-examined by Ms Higgins' lawyer Rachael Young SC.
On Monday, Senator Reynolds spoke about how she had opted not to run for another term in the senate due to the toll on her physical and mental health since Ms Higgins was allegedly raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann inside the senator's ministerial office.
She also spoke at length about the meeting she had with Ms Higgins and her then-chief of staff Fiona Brown in that same office just days after the incident. Ms Young has argued that the decision to have that meeting in the same room in which Ms Higgins was raped was evidence of how Senator Reynolds had mishandled the aftermath of the incident, although Senator Reynolds told the court she was not explicitly aware of the rape allegation and at that stage primarily viewed the matter as a security breach.
Today's testimony is likely to look into matters such as Senator Reynolds' description of Ms Higgins as a "lying cow" after the staffer went public with the incident on The Project, as well as the Commonwealth's decision to effectively freeze the senator out of the process that ultimately saw Ms Higgins awarded almost $2.5 million in compensation.
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