Lehrmann ‘tried to kiss’ Higgins weeks before alleged rape

Brittany Higgins claimed Bruce Lehrmann tried to kiss her after a work dinner about a week after she started working alongside him, the court has heard.

Higgins testified again on the second day of the rape trial against former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann.

Brittany Higgins’ accused rapist made a pass and tried to kiss her as they were leaving a Canberra pub weeks before he allegedly raped her on a couch in a ministerial office, a court has heard. 

Higgins, 27, entered the witness box for the first time inside courtroom three in the ACT Supreme Court to give testimony on the second day of the trial of former ministerial staffer Bruce Lehrmann over the alleged assault. 

Higgins said Lehrmann tried to kiss her after a work dinner with colleagues at the Kingston Hotel as they were leaving the pub about a week after she started working alongside him in the office of then defence industries minister, Linda Reynolds.

“I rebuffed the kiss mostly out of shock – I wasn’t anticipating it,” Higgins said. 

“We didn‘t have an exchange after the attempt. I think he was embarrassed.” 

Lehrmann – who has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex without consent and recklessness towards whether Higgins was consenting – looked at her as she entered the witness stand. 

Brittany Higgins leaves the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra after giving her first direct testimony.

The court was shown CCTV of Higgins drinking with colleagues at The Dock on the evening of the alleged assault on March 22 in 2019. 

She wears a long white dress and gets progressively more drunk, stumbling and appearing unsteady on her feet. 

“I’ve seen myself stumble a bit and I’m swaying so its [level of intoxication] is getting pretty high,” Higgins told the court. 

Lehrmann arrived at The Dock at about 8.45pm with another colleague. 

Higgins is seen sculling one last drink at The Dock before she, Lehrmann and a couple of others leave the pub and head to the 88mph club in Civic. 

Higgins said she couldn’t recall how she got to the 80s themed venue and her memory was “patchy”, in her second police interview recorded on May 26 in 2021, 

“I don’t even have a full memory of leaving The Dock,” she said. 

Higgins said she didn’t recall how many shots she consumed at the 88mph club only that they “kept coming”. 

Higgins couldn’t recall kissing Lehrmann, which the court heard was witnessed by a mutual friend, at the nightclub but said she trusted a “sober mind” over her own. 

She remembered sitting in a corner booth between colleagues and Lehrmann, as well as dancing on the dancefloor by herself at some point. 

Higgins also remembered falling up the stairs as they went to leave, scraping her knee. 

Bruce Lehrmann outside court after day two of the trial.

Lehrmann helped her up and spoke with bouncers before the pair got into an Uber or a taxi outside the bar. 

“I didn’t feel together. I felt messy. I knew I was really intoxicated. It was weird,” she said.

“I drink socially but don’t normally get obliterated – It felt like obliteration. I was at 100.” 

Higgins she doesn’t remember what time they got into the taxi or any conversation with Lehrmann in the taxi other than him saying he had to pick something up from work. 

She said during sitting weeks she would arrive at Parliament House about 5am and leave at 11pm and she didn’t think it unreasonable a staffer would need to return to the building after hours because “you feel like work is your home. 

“Which was why I was so obliging,” she said. 

Higgins said she was confused about how they gained access to the front gate, ministerial entrance and other parts of the parliament building without their swipe cards. 

She said Lehrmann told her to stay quiet as they went through security. 

Higgins said she remembers “signing something” at the front entrance but when detectives showed her the parliamentary sign in book from that night it was not her handwriting. 

Once the pair gained access to Reynolds’ office Higgins said she sat by herself on a windowsill ledge looking out at the prime minister’s courtyard. 

She said she didn’t know where Lehrmann was and she next remembers waking to him allegedly raping her. 

“As soon as I came to I was crying because I couldn‘t get up,” said Higgins. 

Higgins said she was jammed into the corner of the couch with Lehrmann’s knees pushing into both of her legs as he held himself up on the couch, looking over her but not at her. 

She said Lehrmann was grunting and sweaty, which made her think the alleged assault had been going on for awhile and he was close to finishing. 

Higgins said she repeatedly said no and felt like she was caught on repeat but said her nos seemed like a “strange afterthought” for Lehrmann. 

“It didn’t feel like it was about me at all,” she said. 

She said the alleged intercourse was rough and forceful and she felt “trapped and not human”. 

Higgins said she believed Lehrmann finished and she wasn’t sure whether he used a condom. 

“I felt like he finished in me but I’m not 100 per cent sure,” she said. 

“I remember he got off me and getting dressed. 

“He looked at me, there was a strange moment of eye contact. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. He left the room.” 

Higgins said she passed out on the couch and the next thing she remembers is a female security guard yelling into the office, asking if she was ok, at about 8am. 

She replied she was “fine” and later took an Uber home where she spent most of the weekend holed in her room crying. 

The court also heard from the recorded police interview that while Higgins did not visit a GP after the alleged assault or take the morning after pill, she performed a pregnancy test – bought from a Perth convenience store – some weeks later during the 2019 election. 

“I was slow on the uptake processing everything,” she said.

“It was me checking because I was late and stressed.”

She eventually visited a doctor “sometime after the election” and was prescribed anxiety medication “to help me cope”. 

The Monday after the alleged rape Higgins said Lehrmann bought her a coffee. She said she tried to “overcompensate” for what had happened to make “everything normal” again. 

“He [Lehrmann] didn’t seem ashamed or upset or anything,” she said.

“It didn’t seem like something he wanted to address.”

The next day Reynolds’ chief-of-staff Fiona Brown arrived in Canberra and called in Lehrmann for a meeting in her office. 

He emerged after 45 minutes, Higgins said, and immediately packed up his desk and left. 

Higgins was then called into a meeting with Brown, which she said felt disciplinary and “like she was in trouble”. 

“I knew I’d done nothing wrong and hadn’t consented [but] I felt stressed that I was going to be fired,” she said. 

Brittany Higgins leavescourt with her partner David Sharaz after day two of the trial.

Higgins said she was “full and frank” and verbalised the alleged assault although stopped short of saying the word rape. 

“As soon as I identified it as a rape and that I didn’t consent to any of that I started to cry and that’s when the gears shifted and it became less about me and more political,” she said. 

“She handed me the EAP brochure and told me to call the number. I did but it was a 2 month wait to speak to psychologists.” 

Higgins said she broke down in tears and Brown sent her home for the rest of the day. 

Over the ensuing weeks Higgins confided – to varying degrees – in colleagues as well as family and friends about the alleged assault. 

During the recorded police interview Higgins said she came to work in Reynolds’ office after reports her former boss then defence industry minister Steven Ciobo would not contest the 2019 election. 

Higgins said she went to a “quasi job interview” with Nicole Hamer, then senior adviser to Reynolds, at the Kingston Hotel on March 2 in 2019. 

She said this was the first time she met Lehrmann. 

Higgins said Reynolds office was haphazard and informal and the staffers, all under the age of 28, had been “left alone for their egos to run around” and there was tension between the new and old staff. 

“Everyone was trying to cement their place and be the most senior adviser,” she said. 

“I was the lackey running around.” 

Higgins there was an argument between advisers over the location of the fridge and said it was her job to lug the fridge between locations decided on by the warring sides of the office. 

She said Lehrmann had put three desks together to stake out his space in the office and she saw him as the most senior adviser whereas she felt she was “pretty disposable”. 

“The disparity between me and him was huge,” she said.

“She’d [Reynolds] known him for a really long time. 

“I was just the new admin girl so I was pretty disposable.” 

Higgins said she did most of the “grunt work” in the office and Lehrmann would often instruct her to complete tasks outside her role. 

“Being a ministerial staffer the roles are sort of blurred and you do what’s asked of you,” she said. 

“He was above me in station so I just did what was asked.”

The trial continues.