Lawyers deliver closing arguments in Linda Reynolds defamation case against Brittany Higgins | Defamation Law (Australia)

Oral arguments in the defamation case brought by Brittany Higgins against her former boss, Liberal Party Senator Linda Reynolds, were due to be heard on Monday after a turbulent four-week trial.

Reynolds sued Higgins over a series of social media posts published in July 2023 that the Liberal senator claimed damaged her reputation. But Higgins has claimed a defence of truth, saying Reynolds mishandled her rape allegation and failed to properly support her.

Witness statements in recent weeks have focused not only on the alleged harm Reynolds suffered as a result of the messages, but also on other events in the five-year period after Higgins alleged she was raped by her colleague Bruce Lehrmann in the then-defence minister’s office in Parliament House in 2019.

Lehrmann denies raping Higgins, and his criminal trial was derailed by jury misconduct. As part of Lehrmann’s failed defamation lawsuit against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, a federal court ruled in April that he had raped Higgins on the balance of probabilities. Lehrmann is appealing that finding.

During the defamation trial, the court heard from politicians, journalists, employees and family members and friends of Higgins and Reynolds.

Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett opened the trial by saying that “every fairytale needs a villain” and claimed that Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, had cast the Liberal senator in the role.

Bennett also alleged that the two planned to ambush the Western Australian senator as part of a sophisticated media plan.

He said Higgins had created a “fictional story of political cover-ups” describing Reynolds’ abuse, exclusion and bullying, but that “none of it was true”.

But Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young SC responded in her opening submissions that the series of events had “never been a fairytale” for her client, and that the comments were “misplaced, intimidating and re-traumatising”.

Young told the court the defence would show Reynolds knew about Higgins’ alleged rape before April 1, 2019, the date Higgins and Reynolds had their only meeting about the matter – a claim Reynolds has strongly denied.

The defense also asked why Reynolds did not meet with Higgins again after the April 1, 2019 meeting to discuss her alleged rape and her well-being. Reynolds responded that she “tried to give her agency,” but that she “was not her counselor.”

Former Foreign Minister Marise Payne told the trial that the political attacks on Reynolds following Higgins’ allegations of a cover-up had rarely been as fierce as in Parliament.

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended Reynolds’ handling of the alleged rape and dismissed claims of a government cover-up as “completely and utterly untrue”.

The trial before Judge Paul Tottle is expected to conclude on Wednesday.

– with Australian Associated Press