As Australia’s political show-trial of the century (so far) winds down to its close, the opposing arguments have boiled down to what rape cases almost always do: he said, she said.
Rape accused Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer has told jurors they can’t “be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt” that Brittany Higgins knows what happened to her in the office of Linda Reynolds in March 2019 and there is “no DNA and no evidence” to support her allegations of assault.
There’s no DNA, because Higgins never went to a doctor — despite telling police and others that she had.
Barrister Steve Whybrow said in his closing statement to the ACT Supreme Court that Ms Higgins was an “unreliable” witness who said things that “suited her” and relied on talking points about trauma to cover up inconsistencies in her evidence […]
Mr Whybrow said a photo of a bruise Ms Higgins said was on her left leg caused by Mr Lehrmann’s knee during the alleged rape was actually on her right leg.
He said while Ms Higgins said she’d taken a photo after the alleged assault on April 13, 2019, there was no medical evidence supporting whether the bruise would have remained 13 days later.
On the other hand, Higgins’ lawyers argue that their client is wholly reliable.
In the final day of the rape trial before the jury is released to deliberate on its verdict, crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold said Ms Higgins was an “inherently credible witness” and if her allegation was a “fabrication”, she was “quite the actor” who had remained consistent in her story over the past 3½ years.
Except that she has contradicted herself on several occasions, and also long resisted handing over her phone to police. In the end, she did so only after deleting swathes of text messages and photos.
Mr Drumgold said Ms Higgins faced significant “political forces” in the wake of the alleged rape and was right to be scared for her career and to have moved forward carefully in her dealings with police.
This may be plausible enough — except that the “significant political forces” also worked in Higgins’ favour. The media almost uniformly swung behind Higgins, as did the feminists who besieged Parliament House.
Higgins had, in fact, everything to gain and little to lose. Her career was already under threat, the moment she was found, passed out drunk and naked on her boss’ couch. As a rape victim, though, she gained almost universal unquestioning sympathy — not to mention a lucrative book deal, which was brokered before she went to the police, to re-open an official investigation.
But, then, Bruce Lehrmann has everything to lose, too, if he loses his case. Indeed, as is too often the case with rape allegations, mere accusation is enough to ruin a man’s career.
[Drumgold] said Mr Lehrmann told numerous people different reasons for why he went to parliament with Ms Higgins about 1am on March 23, 2019, including that he was going to “drink whisky”, pick up his keys and work on a question time document.
Mr Whybrow in his closing statement showed the jury CCTV vision that captured Mr Lehrmann going through parliamentary security appearing not to have keys with him.
Mr Drumgold, however, said Mr Lehrmann had told numerous people, including security and police, that he had been “requested to pick up documents” and “work on question time documents” […]
Mr Drumgold also raised questions over Mr Lehrmann turning the lights of the office off and leaving Ms Higgins alone in the dark before being seen by security “hurrying” out the building.
Mr Lehrmann said he left because his Uber ride home had already arrived, which Mr Drumgold said was not strictly true and the Uber was still three minutes away when he exited the building.
In the end, though, as the defence reminded the jury, the accused has “no onus to prove anything”.
“That’s very, very important in a case like this where we know there’s already been a fair bit of trial by media,” he said.
“We are here for due process, we are here for presumption of innocence […] Are you satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt?”
The Australian
And that’s the nub of it: she says, he says. Higgins has everything to gain, and Lehrmann has everything to lose. At least one of them is not telling the truth.
