By Angus Thompson
The barrister for former ministerial adviser Bruce Lehrmann has told a jury Australians had been “sold a pup” over the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, claiming his client never even had sex with his parliamentary colleague.
On the first day of the high-profile criminal trial, the ACT Supreme Court heard from the prosecution that Lehrmann, a one-time staffer to former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds, lied about his reasons for being at Parliament House on the night Higgins alleges she was sexually assaulted.
Crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold told the court that Higgins was so drunk she “couldn’t even sign her own name” to enter the building in the early hours of March 23, 2019.
Former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann arrives at the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday morning.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
However, Steven Whybrow, acting for Lehrmann, said the national uproar over the allegations was the epitome of the adage “never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” but that this was a story “whose time had come”.
“The Australian public has been sold a pup with this story. There has been a story out there which is not true,” Whybrow said during his opening address, in which he added that one witness would give evidence that she’d seen Lehrmann and Higgins kissing at a bar in the lead-up to the alleged incident.
Lehrmann is facing a six-week trial on a count of having sexual intercourse with Higgins without consent and being reckless as to whether she was consenting. He has pleaded not guilty.
Reynolds is on a list of 52 potential witnesses, which also includes former prime minister Scott Morrison’s chief-of-staff, John Kunkel, former Coalition minister Michaelia Cash and high-profile journalists Samantha Maiden and Lisa Wilkinson.
During his opening address, Drumgold said Higgins recalled being “shocked” awake by a pain in her leg before seeing Lehrmann having sex with her on a couch in Reynolds’ office.
He said Higgins had in the days following texted a friend saying she didn’t remember arriving in the office. “I was barely lucid, I really don’t think it was consensual at all,” he quoted her as saying.
In a police record of interview played to the jury, Higgins, who is giving evidence in person on Wednesday, said, “I was crying throughout the entire process … he was on top of me, I said ‘no’ at least half a dozen times. He did not stop, he kept going.”
Supreme Court chief justice Lucy McCallum earlier warned potential jurors they might be familiar with the names of Higgins and Lehrmann.
“It’s become a trial that has a momentum of its own,” McCallum said on Tuesday morning, adding that members of the jury panel who attended last year’s March for Justice outside Parliament House or followed Higgins on Twitter “might” want to exclude themselves.
“If you’re a member of the party faithful, if you have formed a preconceived idea about this case, which you do not think you can stand back from in light of the evidence, you should come forward and tell me that,” she said.
In recounting the prosecution’s version of events that led to the alleged rape, Drumgold said Higgins, who had been working for former Coalition minister Steven Ciobo, and Lehrmann met up when two separate groups of staffers mingled at The Dock bar and restaurant in Kingston, Canberra.
The court heard Higgins had about 10 drinks at The Dock, which had been bought by Lehrmann and others, and a shot of liquor at another venue, 88mph, where Higgins was so intoxicated that she was falling over.
“She says that was the point she knew she had to leave because she was as drunk as she had ever been in her life,” Drumgold said.
The court heard Lehrmann suggested they share a cab and said he had to stop by Parliament House to pick something up from work.
Drumgold said Lehrmann gave police two reasons for going to Parliament: firstly, that he had left his keys in his office, and secondly, that after speaking to Defence staff at The Dock, he was prompted to go back and stick tabs on a question-time brief.
“The second reason we will say is a lie,” Drumgold said.
Higgins told police in the interview, “I question it all now but at the time it didn’t seem unsafe, it didn’t seem like a situation that was dangerous. It just felt like I was going to into work with a colleague.”
The court heard one of the security guards at the ministerial entrance observed that Higgins, who had to take her shoes off to pass through a metal detector, “couldn’t get her shoes back on for the life of her”.
Drumgold said Lehrmann said in his police interview that after entering the office, Higgins went into the minister’s suite and he went to his desk, got what he needed for the weekend, ordered an Uber and left. The timeline of the Uber booking will be scrutinised.
The court heard Higgins could not remember whether she had gone to the couch willingly “or was guided there”.
“She states that during the sexual assault … her dress was still on her body and scrunched up around the waist,” Drumgold said.
The court heard that when a security guard checked on her at 4.15am, Higgins was lying naked on the lounge.
“This is a greater state of undress than the complainant remembers during the sexual assault,” Drumgold said.
Whybrow said this detail was important as it suggested she had taken off her dress and had “passed out waiting for Mr Lehrmann.”
“The issue in this case when it is boiled down is the credibility and reliability of Ms Higgins,” he said. “Nobody else was in that suite that night.”
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