Linda Reynolds vs Brittany Higgins defamation: Peta Credlin had hand in Higgins’ statement, trial told

Linda Reynolds has returned to WA’s Supreme Court — as her legal team renewed their attack on Brittany Higgins as they began their closing arguments in the multi-million dollar defamation claim against her former staffer.

On what could be the penultimate day of the high-stakes defamation case, Ms Higgins’ legal team completed their closing submissions, and Ms Reynolds’ barrister Martin Bennett began his.

With Ms Reynolds making her first appearance in court since giving evidence herself, she sat tautly in court to listen to her case being concluded.

And that began with Ms Higgins being labelled “arrogant”, and being accused of “trivialising” the hurt of her former boss.

And they also sought to undermine the closing salvo from her lawyer Rachael Young, saying a 2021 statement quoting Ms Higgins was actually written by David Sharaz — and tweaked by Liberal powerbroker and broadcaster Peta Credlin.

“Ms Higgins arrogantly — from the sanctity of France — claims the status of the person most seriously affected by this matter and trivialises the hurt to others,” Mr Bennett said.

“We don’t adopt this claim from the moral high ground that Miss Higgins does.

“And what we say is it’s necessary to state — plainly and clearly in the context of these submissions — that Senator Reynolds … has never challenged in any respect the fact that Ms Higgins was raped.

“We’ve never sought to trivialise the hurt the damage that that would cause to Ms Higgins, unlike her trivialisation of the hurt caused to Senator Reynolds.

“But this action concerns the conduct of Ms Higgins some two years later, in February 2021 when Ms Higgins together with her now husband Mr Sharaz, executed a coordinated plan.”

That plan is at the heart of Ms Reynolds’ claim of defamation, which revolves around three social media posts uploaded in 2022 and 2023.

But Ms Reynolds in her written claim and the evidence unveiled over the past five weeks, says they were just part of a coordinated conspiracy which began in 2021 when Ms Higgins went public.

And part of the preparation for an interview on The Project was a five-hour pre-interview with Lisa Wilkinson and her producers, which Mr Bennett said was telling.

“Attacks by questions in the Senate, that involved print media, television media — and the utilisation of the protection of absolute privilege in Parliament to personally attack Senator Reynolds,” Mr Bennett said.

“The attack by Miss Higgins, which was unwarranted and unprovoked, was the expression of a visceral hatred that was laid bare by the recording of the five-hour interview.

“Plainly, what was said in that five-hour interview was the genuine, unguarded, unrehearsed, real and true expression of the motive for what then took place.”

Mr Bennett said those attacks were based on a “litany of lies”.

And amid that, he pointed to Ms Higgins’ claim that the Senator and her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown met with Ms Higgins near the couch she said she was raped on — while already knowing that was where the attack was said to have happened.

“Your Honour had the opportunity to hear (Senator Reynolds’) background — her dedication to supporting women’s rights,” Mr Bennett said.

“You can derive that from (Ms Brown’s) affidavit, from her statements, to see that she was a mature, sensible, caring woman encountering an unusual circumstance.

“If they had known there was a sexual assault on the couch in their office, why would they have scheduled a meeting for that office?

“It implies a sense of callousness and insensitivity, a disregard — totally antithetical to the characters that you saw

“It’s logically so improbable that Your Honour should discount it immediately.”

In the closing of her defence, Ms Young cited Ms Higgins’ agency, citing a statement she released in April 2021 following her meeting with then PM Scott Morrison.

“I don’t believe that agency was provided to me over the past two years but I seize it now,” the statement said.

Mr Bennett pointed to the lead-up to that statement being released, which included contact between Mr Sharaz and Ms Credlin, the former chief of staff to PM Tony Abbott.

“This idea that statements made by Ms Higgins after the date of The Project interview and the main article corroborate her ... needs to be treated with caution,” Mr Bennett said.

“Because what appears to be Miss Higgins’ voice is the voice of people jumping on a bandwagon.”

In response, Ms Young said because the statement went through “various drafts” did not diminish the final version.

“They are her words,” Ms Young said.

Mr Bennett used more of Ms Higgins’ words, when he tore into her claim that while in Perth during the 2019 election campaign she was isolated and ostracised.

Mr Bennett pointed to various text messages, where Ms Higgins described her days as awesome, fine, nice and memorable, alongside pictures of her on the campaign trail.

“You put together the personal messages, you put together the photographs, you put together the oral evidence -- and it’s a preposterous misstatement of the position that’s put by Miss Higgins,” Mr Bennett said.

“It is not even defended by Miss Higgins in these proceedings. It was a false claim. She’s been fully supported, people have checked on her welfare.

“Senator Reynolds isn’t an AFP investigator, nor is she a sexual assault counsellor.

“But she watched, she engaged. She watched to see how Miss Higgins was engaging in the election. She sat next to her at her own dinner, and had a solid chat.”

In an earlier submission, Ms Higgins’ legal team argues her social posts about her complaint being mishandled and being personally harassed by the Senator are true.

In a polar opposite legal universe, Mr Bennett argued that in fact the Senator “did everything she could”.

“At great cost to herself personally — both physically and mentally — in an act which we would describe as quite extraordinary moral courage (Senator Reynolds ) kept her promise .. to never attack Ms Higgins for her obvious lies,” Mr Bennett said.

“She did everything she could to ensure that Ms Higgins’ principal and most significant allegation — that she’d been raped by Mr Lehrmann — could be properly and fully investigated and prosecuted for a period of virtually two years.

“Senator Reynolds never once publicly or privately questioned or challenged the veracity of Ms Higgins’ allegation.

“She respected Ms Higgins’ agency.

“She did that in the face of the attack in the media, through … trolling, through the Parliament. (And) never once disputed the lies for fear of discrediting the principal allegation that she’d been raped.”

While unpicking details of Ms Higgins’ recall and recounting her treatment by the Senator, Mr Bennett also turned on the evidence which she didn’t call — notably the absence of her husband Mr Shiraz on the witness stand.

“The most significant failure … he’s named as a party to the plan, a co-conspirator in the tort of conspiracy — there is ample basis to infer that were he in court to give evidence, his evidence would not assist.”

In an earlier closing argument, Ms Higgins’ lawyer told a Perth court the senator communicated with Mr Lehrmann’s defence Steve Whybrow before and during his aborted criminal trial.

“What those 21 messages show is the senator’s partisan attitude in favour of the accused,” Rachael Young SC told the Western Australian Supreme Court on Monday during her closing submissions.

Ms Young said Senator Reynolds gave Mr Whybrow suggestions for potential witnesses and phone numbers to contact them.

“They engaged in fairly informal conversation, including Mr Whybrow’s reference to ‘s***s going to get real soon’ and ‘karma comes to those who wait’,” she said.

Ms Young said the senator sent Mr Whybrow a photographic comparison between Ms Higgins and the Princess of Wales.

“On her own admission, this was a bit catty and intemperate and as she confessed when I tried to explore the reasons for this message or what this message meant, she accepted it doesn’t make great rational sense,” she said.

“What it does demonstrate, though, is the senator got comfortable enough with Mr Whybrow to display that annoyance to him about Ms Higgins’ outfit.”

Ms Young said the senator was also signalling to Mr Whybrow that she might have other information that could help Mr Lehrmann.

“The senator’s text can be only sensibly described as attempting to assist the accused,” she said, explaining Ms Higgins’ justification and truth defence for an Instagram story in July 2023 that alleged the senator engaged in questionable conduct during Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial.

Ms Young said it amounted to questionable conduct “because the senator was at pains to say she had a position of neutrality” and “didn’t pick sides between her two former employees at the time of the criminal trial”.

Mr Lehrmann denies raping Ms Higgins in Senator Reynolds’ ministerial suite in 2019 and his criminal trial in October 2022 was derailed by juror misconduct.