Linda Reynolds’ lawyer has told a court “every fairytale needs a villain” and has claimed Brittany Higgins and her husband schemed to ambush the Western Australian senator as part of a sophisticated media plan.
Reynolds is suing Higgins in the Western Australia supreme court over social media posts she alleges damaged her reputation, marking the latest in a series of legal battles related to Higgins’ rape in Parliament House five years ago.
As the defamation trial began on Friday, Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, said Higgins created a “fictional story of political cover-up”, detailing ill-treatment, ostracisation and bullying, but “none of it was true”.
The veracity of Higgins’ rape allegations has never been questioned by Reynolds, Bennett said. Bennett also argued that Higgins and her now husband, David Sharaz, conceived a media plan down to the last detail, with Bennett saying the evidence would prove Higgins “needed a villain” and decided to “cast” Reynolds in that role.
Bennett alleged Higgins and Sharaz schemed to “ambush” Reynolds at her National Press Club address in February 2021, shortly after Higgins’ allegations the senator had made her feel like a political problem following her rape. Reynolds cancelled the public appearance and took medical leave being admitted to hospital for a pre-existing heart condition.
Bennett directed the court to a series of communications between Higgins, Sharaz and Canberra press gallery journalists in which Sharaz explained Higgins would go to the police with her rape allegations after Reynolds’ speech so that the senator couldn’t use a “holding line” about ongoing investigations.
Bennett also described the moment when Reynolds first saw the allegations made against her, leading to her calling her former employee a “lying cow”.
Reynolds later apologised for the comment, paying for Higgins’ legal bills and making a donation to a sexual assault charity.
Bennett explained the reaction as “a moment of intense anger hearing you’re being falsely accused of something so contrary to your value system”. The inclusion of “cow” was “unfortunate” but the response was otherwise “entirely defensible” because Higgins was lying, Bennett argued.
Reynolds sat in the front row of the courtroom flanked by family and her team on Friday.
“I’m feeling confident that the truth is about to be told,” the senator told media as she arrived at court with her husband, Robert Reid.
“It’s well and truly time for the truth.”
The case is one of a number of cases to stem from Higgins’ decision to publicly allege in 2021 she had been raped in Reynolds’ office by a colleague, Bruce Lehrmann.
Lehrmann has always vehemently denied the allegation and pleaded not guilty at the criminal trial, which was aborted due to juror misconduct. A second trial did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health. As part of his failed defamation trial against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, a federal court in April found that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Higgins.
Higgins settled a personal injury claim against the government for $2.445m in December 2022.
In June the next year, Reynolds said she would refer the payout to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
Reynolds claimed the payment to Higgins was finalised in an “unusually swift” manner, “raising serious questions about how this significant sum of public money was determined and allocated”.
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In July, Higgins responded in an Instagram story, urging Reynolds to “stop”.
Reynolds responded by sending a concerns notice against her former staffer, saying “ever since Ms Higgins first made her allegations of rape public, I have been the target of unwarranted criticism and abuse”.
After Higgins published another statement on Twitter/X two weeks later, Reynolds proceeded to take legal action and filed a writ in August.
Court documents show Reynolds alleges that Higgins’ posts were in breach of a settlement and release signed in March 2021. That settlement allegedly contained a non-disparagement clause.
In court on Friday, Bennett ran through a series of text messages, pictures and meeting invitations to show Higgins had misled the commonwealth during her personal injury settlement. Reynolds’ case is seeking to show that Higgins’ claim she was “sequestered” to work in a hotel room months after her alleged rape were not true.
Bennett pulled up a number of pictures of Higgins smiling in campaign pictures in Western Australia, and text exchanges she shared with her then boyfriend, Ben Dillaway.
In messages responding to Dillaway’s questions about her time there, Higgins responded in her first few weeks she had been “out and about” at local campaign events and had been enjoying her downtime “poolside” and “adventuring” around the lake.
Bennett said the exhibits showed a “vivacious” young woman enjoying her job, highlighting the alleged “barefaced falsity” of Higgins’ claims.
The trial before Justice Paul Tottle is expected to continue until early September, with a host of high-profile witnesses expected to offer their accounts, including Reynolds and Higgins.
Reynolds was also suing Sharaz for defamation. In April, Sharaz said he would not fight the case as he could not afford to pay legal costs to defend himself.
With additional reporting by Australian Associated Press
