From The Australian. I'm Claire Harvey. We're hoping you're having a great holiday break and today we're bringing you one of our favorite episodes from the year. This episode originally aired on March four as the legal saga, prompted by Brittany higgins allegation she was raped by Bruce Lammon, entered a new phase. The Front will return with all new episodes on Monday, January thirteenth. Just hit follow or subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.
The first thing that sort of awoke me was I was in a pain. My leg was kind of being crushed.
The senior staff was on top of me.
This is the moment that launched a thousand lawsuits. So I woke up mid rape. Essentially, this is Britney Higgins's claim on Network ten's The Project that as a twenty three year old Liberal staffer she was raped by another twenty three year old later identified as Bruce Lahman, an allegation Lahman completely denies. The Projects story wasn't just an
allegation of rape. It was about Higgins's sweeping claim that the then Coalition government led by Scott Morrison had actively silenced her Higgins accused two women of being core to the cover up her then boss, Cabinet Minister Linda Reynolds, and reynolds then chief of staff Fiona Brown. Both women have since said they're devastated by higgins allegation and that in fact they encouraged Higgins to go to the police and gave her their full support. Fiona Brown, the former staffer,
has indicated she wants only to move on. Linda Reynolds, the former minister, is not going anywhere. She's fighting for her reputation, firing defamation lawsuits at everyone who's accused her of wrongdoing, including Higgins, her partner David Scharaz and Shane Drumgold, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Act, and today the Australians revealing Reynolds has had a big win in the
case against drum Gold. The Act government has quietly settled the defamation matter out of court by giving Reynolds a substantial payout.
Lenna Reynolds was and has been for a long time now very distressed about the way that she was represented and indeed misrepresented through the whole Higgins Luhmann saga.
Stephen Rice is the Australian's New South Wales editor.
That, of course states back to the claims by Higgins that Reynolds took no care of her, ignored her claims of being raped at the hands of British Luhman, did little or nothing about it afterwards, and indeed washed the
hands of it for political reasons at the time. Now, those misrepresentations obviously gnawed away at Reynolds, and I guess partly because you'll recall that at one point Linda Reynolds was forced to apologize to Higgins and indeed pay her money because she was discovered to have called her a lying cow.
This comment lying cow is something another political staffer said she'd heard Linda Reynolds say while watching that TV interview. Reynolds admitted saying those words. But and this goes to the heart of Linda reynolds gripe. She says she was not denying Higgins had been raped. She was objecting to Higgins's claim that Reynolds was part of a politically motivated cover up. This is believed to be the fifth successful
legal action brought by Linda Reynolds. She sued radio hosts and others for airing allegations against her, and on Tuesday she'll face off with her main accuser.
There is another case coming up very soon. In fact, on Tuesday, Linda Reynolds in mediation will be meeting Britney Higgins and David Sharraz over a claim that she's taken against them. So this is an ongoing process for Reynolds. She's determined to clear her name no matter what it costs,
no matter how far she has to go. And indeed, Higgins and Charraraz have had to fly back from France, as I understand it, the first time that they've been back to Australia since they left a few months ago to take part in this mediation in Perth to try of the latest case that Reynolds has brought against them.
A brief recap for you of the way events unfolded after that alleged incident. In the early hours of March twenty three, twenty nineteen, after Friday night drinks, Higgins and Lemon took an uber to Parliament. Higgins says she fell asleep in the Ministerial suite on Reynold's sofa, then woke up to find Lemon raping her. Lemon denies any sexual
contact at all. On the following Tuesday, March twenty six, Lemon and Higgins were both in the office when Chief of Staff Fiona Brown called Lemon into her room and told him he'd breached security by entering Parliament and had to pack up his desk and leave. Higgins says that day she told Fiona Brown she'd woken up to find
Lemon on top of her. Brown says Higgins didn't tell her this, and when Brown asked, did something happen you didn't want Higgins indicated no. Brown says it was only later she realized Higgins had been found naked on the sofa by a security guard and realized there might be something more sinister. Brown says it wasn't until the Thursday that Higgins told her Lemon had been on top of her.
Brown alleges Reynolds and another senior politician, Alex Hawk, wanted her to go to police at this stage and report that something had happened. Brown said she refused that she didn't believe that was right because Higgins was insisting she didn't want the police involved. On April one, Brown says she and Reynolds met with Higgins and the minister encouraged
Higgins to go to the police. Brown says she walked Higgins to the police office in Parliament House, and that subsequently Higgins told her she decided not to pursue a formal complaint. During a criminal trial of Bruce Lammon, which ended without a verdict and saw the charges dropped, Drumgold had taken the dramatic step of asking the trial judge Lucy McCallum for permission to question Reynolds as a hostile witness.
Under Drumgold's questioning, Reynolds said all she knew at the time of her April one meeting with Higgins at Brown was that there'd been a security breach with the two young staff entering the office after hours. At that trial, Drumgold put it to Reynolds that she knew there was what he called a sexual element to the incident. Reynolds denied it that later, Reynolds admitted she did, in fact know by the time of that Monday meeting that there
was an allegation of sexual misconduct. Both Brown and Reynolds say Higgins did not tell them at any point she'd been raped. Now, the beef between Reynolds and Drumgold seems to go pretty deep, and like most things in this matter, it's extremely complicated. But boiling it down Ricey, it centers on a letter that Drumgold wrote. Who was that to and what did he say?
Well, this is a letter that Shane Drumgold had written to the Chief of Police immediately after the criminal trial finished, in which he made a number of allegations that the police had acted poorly, in fact disgracefully through the trial, that they ganged up on him, that they'd instead of helping the prosecution, they'd help the defense.
Drumgold also alleged in the letter that Linda Reynolds had been politically motivated throughout the trial and had sought to coach Bruce Lemmon's lawyers. Drum Gold was so motivated about this ask the act government to call a special inquiry into the matter, but that didn't go as it hoped. Here's what Drumgold told the inquiry, chaired by eminent jurist Walter Sofronoff kc into these allegations of political interference. You'll hear him being questioned by counsel assisting the inquiry, Aaron
Longbottom case. She's asking him about this letter.
So did you think there was a conspiracy of foot I.
Had not formed a view solidly one way or another, but I thought that there was enough incidences to make it possible, if not probable.
These are very serious allegations you make in this letter. Their allegations made for the authority of your office. Do you think possible is the right state of mind to make those allegations?
Well, I mean, if you get stuck on adjectives, I felt that there was enough evidence there to justify an inquiry into it.
In his final report, Sofronoff was scathing about Drumgold's claims, saying they were completely baseless coming up. So was there a conspiracy or not? While I've got you, we'd love you to subscribe to The Australian this week. We'll have more coverage on this matter, plus all the big stories and the best analysis. It's about the price of a sandwich per week. Check us out at the Australian dot com dot au and we'll be back after this break.
If you've been listening to the front, you'll know there are a bunch of other court cases going on, including Bruce Lammon suing Network ten for defamation, Shane Drumgold suing the Board of Inquiry for effectively ending his career. In the defamation case being heard by Justice Michael Lee in the Federal cour Network, Ten has denied it ever put the imputation there was a political cover up simply that
it aired higgins belief that this was so. The Commonwealth in twenty twenty two paid Britney Higgins two point four million dollars over her claims Reynolds and Brown had told her to be quiet about the alleged rape. Brown and Reynolds have both strongly denied these claims. Russie, You've sat through hundreds of hours of various court hearings in relation to this matter. What's your instinct about it? You know? Was there a grand political conspiracy to cover this matter up?
Or two? No? Not prosecute Bruce.
Lean Absolutely not. I mean I couldn't be clear about that. And let me make it clear. I am not talking about the allegation of a rape. I'm not talking about whether or not Bruce Lehman raped Britney Higgins in that suite.
What I'm talking about is her later allegation that there was a political conspiracy involving people like Linda Reynolds and her chiefest staff Fiona Brown, to cover the thing up, to make it go away because somehow it was going to be embarrassing for the Liberal Party in the middle of a federal election. Absolute nonsense, And in fact, everybody who's examined this case ever since has concluded that Walter Sofronoff, who spent months going through all of this, has absolutely
stated clearly there was no political cover up. And in fact, I'd suggest, without wanting to put words in his mouth, that when Justice Lee makes his inevitable findings in the defamation case bought by Bruce Lherman, that he may also find that, regardless of the truth of the rape allegation,
that there was no political cover up. You know, the only political interference, I should say, occurred sometime later when the Labor Party seized upon this events and went for her, just savaged her as a woman who stood by silently after another woman had been raped.
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