Senator Linda Reynolds launches bid for Brittany Higgins’ $2.4 million trust ‘set up to defeat creditors’

Linda Reynolds has launched a fresh legal bid against Brittany Higgins to access a trust that the Senator alleges her former junior media adviser set up in a bid to defeat creditors.

As the outgoing Liberal MP’s Supreme Court of WA defamation action against Ms Higgins nears its end, a writ of summons filed by Senator Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett was made available on Thursday.

According to the writ, Ms Higgins created the Brittany Higgins Protective Trust on December 14, 2021 using a $10 “settlement” by Christine Angela Fear.

The day prior, Ms Higgins reached a $2.445 million settlement with the Federal Government after claiming damages for being allegedly raped by then-colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Senator Reynolds’ Parliament House office in April 2019.

The writ states that “at a date and time not presently known to the plaintiff”, Ms Higgins then transferred to herself, as trustee, the whole settlement “or a significant proportion” of it.

She did that “with the intention of defeating or delaying creditors”, the writ claims, asking the Supreme Court of WA to deem that move void.

Senator Reynolds won the right to be given the trustee’s details last month and could be a creditor if her defamation action is successful.

Senator Reynolds is seeking aggravated damages from Ms Higgins, suing her and her husband David Sharaz over social media posts the pair made in 2022 and 2023, which she says damaged her reputation, taking a big toll on her health.

The posts were critical of Senator Reynolds’ handling of Ms Higgins’ allegation.

Ms Higgins could have to pay her legal fees and those of Senator Reynolds if she loses the court battle, leaving her millions out of pocket.

She confirmed last month that she would have to sell her home in the French countryside to pay her lawyers.

Mr Bennett has said that Ms Higgins went on a “splurge of spending” after the compensation payment, including a trip to the Maldives.

He has also said his client had mortgaged her house “to the hilt to pay for litigation”.

Mr Lehrmann faced trial accused of Ms Higgins’ rape in 2022, but it was aborted due to juror misconduct.

The charge was ultimately dropped and Mr Lehrmann continues to maintain his innocence.

Mr Lehrmann lost a subsequent civil defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson in April this year when Federal Court Justice Michael Lee determined, on the balance of probabilities, that he had raped Ms Higgins at Parliament House.

Justice Lee also found that the other claim in the Network Ten story, of a political cover-up involving Senator Reynolds and others, was not true.

Mr Lehrmann is appealing the decision.

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