Brittany Higgins’ claim on panic attacks heard in secret recording played to Lehrmann defamation trial
Secret recordings Brittany Higgins made of conversations she had about her alleged assault with Michaelia Cash and her chief of staff Daniel Try have been aired in court.
During secretly-recorded phone calls, Brittany Higgins disclosed to her former boss that she was suffering panic attacks and declined an offer from Michaelia Cash to relocate her job to Queensland, a court has heard.
Bruce Lehrmann is suing Network 10 and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over her February 15, 2021 The Project interview with Ms Higgins during which she alleged she had been raped by her former colleague inside Parliament House.
During her evidence, Ms Higgins told the court she was raped on a couch in Senator Linda Reynolds’ office.
Mr Lehrmann has consistently denied the allegation and during his evidence to the court said he had no sexual contact with Ms Higgins on the morning of March 23, 2019.
THE RECORDINGS
The court has heard that Ms Higgins secretly recorded conversations with Michaelia Cash and her chief of staff Daniel Try.
The court heard that she recorded one conversation with Mr Try on January 28, 2021.
She also recorded a further recording, on February 5, with Ms Cash and Mr Try.
Justice Michael Lee on Friday allowed the recordings to be entered into evidence.
The court has heard that Ms Higgins texted Ten producer Angus Llewellyn in February 2021 saying: “Hey I recorded my conversation with Cash and Daniel, if you need it for background, would you like me to send it to you?”
Mr Llewellyn told the court that he listened to the conversation, however did not broadcast it because it was illegally recorded.
“I’m sorry, Mr Richardson, I have no recollection of that recording,” Mr Llewellyn told the court on Tuesday.
“I hadn’t gone through those recordings. I couldn’t use them, it was against the law.”
The court has heard that in 2019, a police officer told Ms Higgins she was told by another senior officer that the AFP had received a media inquiry about an alleged incident in Senator Reynolds’ office.
Detective Senior Constable Sarah Harman told Ms Higgins at the time about the media inquiry, from a Canberra Times journalist, and that the matter could be raised in Senate Estimates.
However the matter was never mentioned in estimates.
By 2021, Ms Higgins was working in Ms Cash’s office.
In a secretly-recorded conversation with Mr Try, Ms Higgins said he had a “full panic attack” because she wasn’t sure if a Canberra Times journalist, who was calling her, knew that she was the person who made an allegation she had been raped in Parliament House.
She told Mr Try that she wanted to find out who that journalist was so she could avoid them and “punt” their inquiries to a colleague.
“Over the holidays I kept getting calls, and it wasn’t even related, but I kept getting calls from these Canberra Times journalists and I kept having freakouts, thinking it was the journalist that contacted Linda Reynolds’ office,” Ms Higgins said on the secret recording.
During the conversation, Mr Try asked Ms Higgins if there was anything he could do to support her.
“Is there anything ... can you contact the Employee Assistance Program.. have they been helpful at all or?” Mr Try said.
She added during the conversation that she had “no complaints about Team Cash” and that she felt “super supported”.
During the second recording, Ms Cash can be heard saying as she picks up the phone: “Hey Britt how are you.”
During the call, Ms Higgins said she wanted to resign from Ms Cash’s office and had planned to exit politics.
“I feel very affirmed that this is definitely the right choice, I just don’t think I can come back into work at this point,” Ms Higgins said on the call.
Ms Cash then offered to allow Ms Higgins to relocate her job to Queensland.
“Can we relocate your position to Brisbane so you never have to come back to Canberra again,” Ms Cash asked
“It’s very kind, I don’t think I can be connected to politics,” Ms Higgins said.
She declined an opportunity to stay with Ms Cash’s office and work on her social media team
Ms Cash and Mr Try also asked Ms Higgins if she intended to go to the police and Ms Cash added: “Daniel and I are here to support you”.
“SUCK IT UP”
The court heard that during The Project interview, Ms Higgins said she was having problems working in Parliament House in 2021 and felt “panicky”.
She also claimed that Ms Cash at the time told her to “suck it up”.
“So I felt every time I walked through (Parliament House security), I would get quite panicky,” Ms Higgins said in the February 2021 interview.
“I said I was having difficulties coming in and at that point (Ms Cash) was like ‘well you’re just going to have to sort of suck it up essentially’.
“It’s that same idea of ‘you deal with it or you leave’.”
Mr Richardson asked Mr Llewellyn about how her statements were seemingly inconsistent with the compassion Ms Cash expressed in the secret recording.
“You heard Ms Cash repeatedly express compassion to Ms Higgins,” Mr Richardson asked.
“Oh yeah, of course,” Mr Llewellyn said.
“You heard her say we will support you every step of the way,” Mr Richardson asked.
“Yes,” Mr Llewellyn said.
“I want to suggest to you that when you heard that recording, that it was inconsistent with Ms Higgins’ account of Ms Cash having said at one point ‘you’re just going to have to suck it up and you deal with it or you leave’,” Mr Richardson said.
“Look, that’s why we put specific questions to Michaelia Cash and Daniel Try, and that’s referred to … (when it was stated in the program) Michaelia Cash’s office disputes this, saying she only recently found out about the specifics.”
THE COSTS
Meanwhile, Ms Wilkinson’s stoush with Network 10 over her legal costs will be the subject of a hearing next year.
Ms Wilkinson has launched court proceedings against her employer in a fight over her legal bills related to her defence of the Lehrmann lawsuit.
The two sides are in disagreement over whether the $700,000 bill should be settled immediately or at the conclusion of the defamation proceedings.
Ms Wilkinson hired high-profile barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC and Gillis Delaney Lawyers partner Anthony Jefferies earlier this year, instead of opting to use Network 10’s retained law firm.
According to documents filed in the NSW Supreme Court, she claims the broadcaster is refusing to pay two invoices worth $353,538 and $370,017.
The matter was set to be argued in court later this week, however the court heard on Tuesday that a factual dispute had arisen.
Justice Lee remarked that the defamation hearing was set to go well past previous estimates.
“The more this case goes on the more I think I’m going to be engaged in it right up til Father Christmas comes,” Justice Lee said.
The costs matter will be the subject of a hearing on February 13 and 14.
THE POLICE COMPLAINT
The court has previously heard that Ms Higgins spoke to police in the weeks following the alleged assault but later told them she did not wish to pursue a complaint.
However, she reactivated her complaint shortly before The Project went to air in February 2021.
The court heard on Tuesday that on February 5, Ms Higgins’ fiance David Sharaz texted The Project producer Angus Llewellyn at 1.10pm saying: “Is the police the last thing you need from B, this is all getting a bit too much for her.”
Mr Llewellyn replied: “Essentially yes.”
“Had you told Ms Higgins that she needed to go to the police?” Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC asked.
“In an earlier conversation Ms Higgins may have said she wanted to go to the police,” Mr Llewellyn told the court on Tuesday.
“I’m not telling anyone to do anything.”
Mr Llewellyn told the court that it was not an “essential step” for Ms Higgins to have made an official police complaint for the story to go to air.
“Did it occur to you that it was inappropriate for a journalist to be saying to a subject that you need to go to the police because it suits the timetable of our broadcast plan,” Mr Richardson said.
“It was handled very sensitively, sir, no I just don’t agree that it was inappropriate,” Mr Llewellyn said.
THE BRUISE PHOTO
The Project producer Angus Llewellyn has given evidence to the court about a five-hour meeting he attended along with Ms Wilkinson when they first met with Ms Higgins and her fiancee David Sharaz in a hotel room in January 2021.
The court heard that in the meeting, Ms Higgins claimed that her phone had “completely died” after she took screenshots of messages with Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash.
Around the same time, Ms Higgins had asked people in Ms Reynolds’ office for someone’s phone number.
In his affidavit, Mr Llewellyn wrote that “Ms Higgins in substance suggested that this could have been the result of the government hacking her phone”.
Mr Llewellyn told the court that he did not include allegations that the government had “hacked” her phone in the story because it was a “rumour” and they had “no proof”.
He said he believed it was a “stuff up” rather than a conspiracy.
“There was no point putting in anything in the story when we had no proof - rumours and theories of phone hacking, we had no proof,” Mr Llewellyn said.
The court heard that during the meeting, Ms Higgins also provided a photo of a bruise which at the time she said she suffered during the alleged sexual assault.
Ms Higgins, during her evidence to the Federal Court, conceded she may have suffered the bruise after falling over on the stairs at a bar earlier in the night.
The court has heard that the metadata revealed that the photo, which was given to Mr Llewellyn, was created on January 27 - the day of the meeting.
Ms Higgins previously told the court that she provided Mr Llewellyn with a screenshot rather than the original.
“Did you ask to see the original,” Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Matthew Richardson SC asked.
“I presumed that was the original,” Mr Llewellyn said.
“Did you ask to check the metadata,” Mr Richardson asked
“No,” Mr Llewellyn said.
Mr Richardson further questioned how it was that the bruise photo had survived the death of Ms Higgins’ phone.
“No, it didn’t occur to me,” Mr Llewellyn said.
“UNREASONABLE”
Mr Richardson pressed Mr Llewellyn on what he said were contradictions in Ms Higgins’ story relating to the death of her phone and the photo.
“I want to suggest to you Mr Llewellyn that what she was saying was nonsensical… I want to suggest to you that what Ms Higgins was saying about the complete death of her phone and the survival of a few other photographs was nonsensical,” Mr Richardson said.
“Well I wouldn’t go with nonsensical. It was unclear what was working and what was not,” Mr Llewellyn said.
“It was so silly the questions it raised, as you said, were unanswerable,” Mr Richardson said.
“I don’t agree with silly, I agree with what I’ve written - that it raises unanswerable questions,” Mr Llewellyn said.
Mr Llewellyn denied that it was “unreasonable” to put the bruise photo to air.
“You actually put this photograph to air,” Mr Richardson said.
“Because we had a statutory declaration, yes,” Mr Llewellyn replied.
“I want to suggest that you failed in your obligation to check the credibility of the source and her evidence in respect of this photograph,” Mr Richardson said.
“I would disagree with that,” Mr Richardson said.
“I want to put to you that your conduct in putting this photograph to air was unreasonable,” Mr Richardson said.
“I would say to the contrary, I don’t think it was unreasonable whatsoever,” Mr Llewellyn said.
THE TAPE
Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers asked for a copy of a leaked audio recording of Brittany Higgins’ lawyer speaking with her fiancee, David Sharaz about her upcoming testimony last week.
On Tuesday night Sky News broadcast audio of Mr Sharaz speaking with lawyer Leon Zwier at the Park Hyatt hotel in Sydney last Monday.
On the tape, they discuss Ms Higgins’ upcoming testimony to the Federal Court.
Another unknown person recorded the conversation and leaked it to Sky News, the broadcaster reported in its coverage of the tape.
Ms Higgins was under cross-examination at the time of the conversation and therefore was forbidden from speaking to anyone about her evidence.
She was not present for the conversation.
Mr Zwier told Sky News his comments were made on the common understanding that no one would speak to Ms Higgins about her testimony.
In a statement, Mr Zwier said that his comments were not meant to be communicated to Ms Higgins.
“All my private conversations with David Sharaz and Emma Webster were on the common understanding that Brittany was under cross examination and no one was to talk with her about the substance of her evidence or the manner in which she was giving it,” Mr Zwier said.
On Tuesday, Mr Lehrmann’s barrister issued a subpoena for Sky News to provide a copy of the tape.
Justice Michael Lee ordered that the tape, and any transcript, be provided to the court by 4.15pm Tuesday.
On Tuesday afternoon a solicitor acting for Sky News produced the tape to the court.
THE PARENTS
Ms Higgins’ mother, Kelly Higgins, told the court on Monday she noticed a change in her daughter’s demeanour in March or April 2019, noting she began to withdraw.
“I got a sense, as her mum, something was wrong,” Kelly Higgins said.
She told the court on Monday that at a dinner at a restaurant, on November 21, 2019, her daughter disclosed the sexual assault allegations to her.
“The next thing she remembers she was on the lounge,” Kelly Higgins told the court of what she was told by her daughter in that conversation.
“She believes she passed out. She was awakened with pressure and pain on her leg … when she was coherent, Bruce Lehrmann was on top of her raping her.”
Kelly Higgins told the court that her daughter was “emotional” and she had the sense Brittany had tried to “push this down”.
“I had just been told a mother’s worst nightmare,” Kelly Higgins told the court on Monday.
Under cross examination from Mr Lehrmann’s barrister, Steve Whybrow SC, she denied that Brittany had not made the allegations to her during that dinner, which was also attended by her partner at the time.
Brittany’s father, Matthew Higgins, told the court that on the weekend following the alleged sexual assault, he visited her in Canberra however she seemed “quiet and withdrawn”.
He said prior to this she made reference to “an incident with someone at work being inappropriate”.
He told the court that it was in February 2020, during a phone call, that she told him about the alleged rape.
“Brittany had told me … what the inappropriate (incident) that had happened at parliament was, that she’d been raped,” Mr Higgins told the court.
Mr Higgins said his daughter urged him to “keep” his “cool” however he said he “shut down”.
“She was probably looking out for me a bit, reassure me, for me to be strong, but I’m a dad, I should be strong,” Mr Higgins said.
“When you hear that, it’s not a good thing to hear.”
THE LIP READER
A UK-based lip-reading expert will be required to fly to Sydney for an estimated one hour’s worth of evidence rather than to appear via videolink.
Justice Michael Lee last week allowed Network 10 to call lip-reading expert Tim Reedy, who will give evidence about what he asserts was said between Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann at a bar on the night of the alleged sexual assault.
The court has heard that Mr Reedy has been asked to analyse CCTV of Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann at The Dock bar.
Mr Reedy is profoundly deaf and requires an interpreter.
Justice Lee said on Monday that Mr Reedy would be required to appear in person.
“I know it will cost some money but I suspect there’s already been quite a bit of money already spent,” Justice Lee said.
He added: “But it’s an unusual situation - this is the first I’ve heard the gentleman requires an interpreter to give his evidence. Which, I must say, I want to see how that works.
“Because it seems to me it will be rationally affecting the weight I will give to his video evidence, how quickly and well he picks up on his interlocutor speaking to him.”
The trial continues.
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