“I know there’s been a lot of discussion about the treatment of women, but regardless, I generally think the culture was horrible.”
Lerman’s trial highlighted the hierarchical, wine-laden culture and often so bad of what former Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the “Canberra bubble”.
The prosecution relied heavily on evidence of political pressure that Higgins says she has been keeping silent about her rape complaint.
Brittany Higgins arrives in court during Bruce Lerman’s rape trial.attributed to him:Alex Ellinghausen
For the prosecution, this was the strongest argument for answering questions about why Higgins had not pursued the police complaint at the time of the alleged incident in March 2019.
On the last day of giving evidence, Shane Drumgold held his sharpest tongue to the most powerful witnesses: Linda Reynolds and Michaela Cash, both coalition senators and government ministers until recently.
It was in Reynolds’ Parliamentary Office that Lerman was accused of raping Higgins while she was partially unconscious after a night of drinking with her colleagues in the early hours of March 23, 2019.
The alleged rape took place inside the office of then-Defense Secretary Linda Reynolds.attributed to him:Alex Ellinghausen
Reynolds of the Witness Fund agreed that although Morrison had yet to set the date, an election was imminent.
What wasn’t clear from her evidence was how much Reynolds knew what Higgins said she had suffered at the hands of her co-worker and what she actually did about it.
Drumgold masterfully painted Lerman’s trial as having nothing to do with the #MeToo movement nor the experiences of any other woman in Parliament.
On the other hand, he said, some higher powers had a direct influence on how Higgins and others dealt with her complaint.
“It is clear that there were strong political forces at play in the period immediately following the events, through the elections and beyond.”
Prosecutor Shane Drumgold SC
Drumgold told the jury that Higgins “has a right to be afraid” of reporting the alleged sexual assault to the police.
“Suffice it to say that there are clearly powerful political forces at play in the period immediately following the events, through the elections and beyond,” Dromgold said in this closing speech. He said Higgins was the “young woman” among those forces.
Reynolds, who appeared under a subpoena, denied the policy had any bearing on Higgins’ decision in 2019 to abandon her initial approach to police after the alleged incident.
Instead, Higgins withdrew from the police operation and remained at her job, traveling to Western Australia with her boss to help during the 2019 election campaign.
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In the same evidence, the senator was forced to make an extraordinary concession when Drumgold asked her about the text messages she had sent before her court appearance.
Reynolds admitted that she texted Lerman’s attorney to provide a proposed questioning line while he was questioning Higgins, as well as asking him for a copy of Higgins’ testimony before she testified.
When Reynolds was called as a guardian witness, Drumgold had to ask the judge’s permission to cross-examine her, meaning he could ask her the guiding questions.
“What is your motivation for trying interrogation training?” put her dermgold.
Reynolds: “That’s not what I was trying to do.”
Drumgold: “I would suggest that on this basis you are obviously politically invested in the outcome of this experiment, right?”
Reynolds: “No… I don’t understand the connection between the two.”
Drumgold: “If you invested enough to text my friend…and we weren’t even in an election, we don’t have an election pending, I would suggest that again on April 1, 2019, when you’re meeting with Brittany Higgins, you are very politically invested in what is happening in That room, right? “
Reynolds: “Absolutely not.”
Former Federal Minister Michaelia Cash testified in Bruce Lerman’s rape trial.attributed to him:Alex Ellinghausen
Cash, who has worked with Higgins since June 2019, was prompted to refuse to confirm that she had denied knowledge of the alleged sexual assault prior to February 2021, when Higgins resigned, because it would have been politically uncomfortable.
Higgins previously told the court that she had spoken to Cash, who was then the Secretary of Employment and Skills, about the claim on several occasions.
Lerman’s attorney, Stephen Wybro, asked Cash if it would be “political suicide” to attempt to cover up sexual assault among employees. It would be, Cash said, “hence my confusion with the previous interrogation line.”
Evidence was also presented during the trial about the alcohol-drenched environment in which employees socialize.
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On the night of the alleged incident, a group of political and departmental servants gathered together at a popular bar on the front of Kingston Beach.
According to Higgins, they were a group who “had this peculiar lofty opinion of themselves on the grounds that they either served in Parliament or the Defence”.
Higgins had 11 drinks at that bar before a smaller group, including Lerman, headed to a downtown nightclub, 88 mph, around midnight.
There, they had shots and danced.
“It was a really good night. It was a harmless night… for the employees who go out to drink, this was not an unusual night.”
Bruce Lerman
“It was a very good night,” said Lerman. “It was a harmless night… for the drinking staff, this was not an unusual night.”
Alcohol made up a large part of the crown’s evidence. There was the amount that Higgins had consumed in the evening, which made her so drunk that she could not remember the main parts of it.
But the court also heard about the presence of liquor in ministerial offices.
Lerman told two of his colleagues that he brought Higgins back to Reynolds’ office at 1.30 a.m. for whiskey.
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Another employee, Nicole Hammer, told the court that Lerman kept a batch of alcoholic beverages in his office, an allegation he denied.
Lerman was only 23 when these events unfolded, and was already Reynolds’ oldest employee, although he had yet to graduate with an arts/politics degree at the Australian National University.
The trial provided insight into the lifestyles of the young servants, who were given great power and prestige within the fiefdoms of ministerial offices, despite their lack of experience, professional or otherwise.
The court heard that Higgins was working with former Queensland MP Stephen Siopow when he was Minister of Defense Industries.
But when Ciobo announced his retirement from politics ahead of the 2019 elections, his portfolio was transferred to Reynolds and the office staff merged.
Higgins provided evidence that Lerman was a regionalist in the context of the office.
Higgins said he claimed two offices in the Cabinet Wing back office were his private office, and asserted his superiority as Reynolds brought the chief of staff with her to the Department of Defense Industries she had just inherited.
“I had a strange and hostile relationship with him,” Higgins told police, later telling them she had refused a kiss from him outside a Canberra bar, but had not taken it seriously because “I’ve had other people in politics making passes at me before.”
“I’ve had other people in politics make passes for me before.”
Brittany Higgins, on why she didn’t take a disapproved ex-kiss from Bruce Lerman seriously
Lerman was largely the young liberal employee, according to Higgins. He even dressed the part, in RM Williams shoes and Ralph Lauren shirts: “The standard kind of liberal attire…the complete gauntlet of everything together.”
Despite the culture of secrecy and cover-up, which Higgins said vindicated her by reporting her allegations to the police in 2019, news began to leak out about what allegedly happened between her and Lerman in the cabinet.
Employees were gossiping, security guards in Parliament, and eventually, journalists began to hear whispers of an accident.
There was a media investigation of Canberra Times In October 2019, which infuriated Higgins, who at the time was working for Cash.
The court heard that Higgins told her friend and ex-boyfriend Ben Deloway, who is also an employee, that he could disclose to Julian Limbrugen, of Morrison’s office, the details of her claim. Dillaway thought this might get Higgins some help, although it wasn’t clear what kind.
Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied prior knowledge of the alleged rape.attributed to him:Dean Sewell
Dillaway said that Higgins was “extremely struggling, not dealing with things.”
“I said, ‘Let me go discreetly to speak to someone in the Prime Minister’s office because this can certainly move things around, or certainly will provide you with the help you need,'” he said.
But later, Morrison denied that he knew anything about the alleged rape until the story was made public on February 15, 2021, on news.com.au.
Amid growing political pressure and uncertainty, the Prime Minister’s Office Chief, Phil Gittens, has been tasked with investigating who knows what and when about the alleged incident.
But Geetgen’s investigation was suspended once criminal justice proceedings began. Now the government has changed, it is not clear if the public will get these answers.
To be sure, Higgins was beginning to feel mistrustful and suspicious of the twin institutions that had long been held in high esteem, such as the Liberal Party and the Houses of Parliament.
After the alleged incident, and the 2019 election, in which the coalition won a surprise victory, Higgins returned to Parliament House to work for Cash.
She has, by her own admission, become “obsessed” with watching CCTV footage of her and Lehrmann entering Parliament in the early hours of March 23.
She thought other people in the building, the people she worked with, had seen it and she felt like she needed to piece together what had happened to her.
When she submitted her formal complaint to the police in 2021, she deleted the content on her phone before handing it over. She said she was afraid.
She told the court that this was due to her fear that the then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton would use his powers to obtain information from the Australian Federal Police about her complaint against the police.
“I was very horrified because that week I found out the moment I re-engaged with the police, before I give an official statement to the police, there is a clause that any politically sensitive person, I don’t know, I don’t know,” she told the court. Internal Affairs”.
“Peter Dutton came over and said he had the basic information for my complaint before I gave an interview to the head of the guide. I know how information flows inside the cabinet and I know he is not isolated. I was very, very scared.”
Much has been said about Higgins’ role in politics. For the prosecution, this was the reason Higgins initially dropped her complaint, so she will be released to work during the election.
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As for the defense, the original complaint was the primary means Higgins used to keep her job under Reynolds’ supervision, only to be eliminated when she realized she was no longer threatened.
Whybrow wondered what evidence Drumgold relied on for bragging about the political forces Higgins were left to navigate.
He said there were no political forces at play “other than Mrs. Higgins”.
Originally published at Melbourne News Vine
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