Stage set for Brittany Higgins’ ex-boss’s own court battle
Brittany Higgins’ former boss will face off against the federal government over claims it failed to protect her following Higgins’ explosive allegations she was raped in Parliament House.
Fiona Brown was chief-of-staff to then-defence minister Linda Reynolds in 2019 when Higgins claimed she had been raped by her colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Reynolds’ office.
Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found Brown had shown compassion and integrity in handling Higgins’ complaint but she had been unfairly “vilified as an unfeeling apparatchik” seeking to cover up a crime.
In his headline-grabbing April 2024 judgment, Lee also found there was no evidence of the cover-up alleged by Higgins but that she had likely been raped by Lehrmann.
Lehrmann is awaiting judgment in his appeal against the bruising defamation loss to Network Ten.
After playing a key role in the defamation proceedings, Brown returned to the Federal Court on Monday for her own fight against the Commonwealth.
Justice Nye Perram set the matter down for a four-week hearing beginning in March 2027, noting it could be shorter.
He ordered the Commonwealth to notify Brown by December 19 if it intended to apply for part or all of her case to be struck out.
The dispute will return to court in February.
If the trial proceeds, it will begin eight years after Higgins told Brown she had woken semi-naked in their boss’s office.
The then-chief-of-staff was shocked when Higgins later said Lehrmann had been on top of her, Lee found.
He ruled that Lehrmann had been so “hell-bent” on having sex with Higgins that he didn’t care whether she was consenting.
Lehrmann has long denied raping Higgins. A criminal trial was abandoned in 2022 with no findings made against him.
His defamation lawsuit against Ten resulted in a finding to the lesser civil standard of the balance of probabilities that Higgins was proven to be a victim of sexual assault.
“Having escaped the lions’ den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat,” Lee said.
1800 RESPECT 1800 737 732
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
-AAP
Want to see more stories from The New Daily in your Google search results?
- Click here to set The New Daily as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "The New Daily". That's it.
