The man accused of raping a colleague in Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra has gone on trial.
Former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann is charged with sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins in the office of a government minister in March 2019.
Mr Lehrmann, 27, has pleaded not guilty and denies the pair had sex at all.
The trial in a Canberra court is scheduled to last up to six weeks and could call on several high-profile witnesses.
Opening their case, prosecutors said the alleged incident had happened after “a drunken night out” with colleagues.
Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins had stopped at Parliament House, where they both worked, and Ms Higgins soon fell asleep on a sofa in a minister’s office, the jury was told.
“The next thing I can remember was being on the couch as he was raping me,” Ms Higgins said in a police interview played to the court.
“I said ‘no’ at least half a dozen times. He did not stop.
“I was crying through the entire process.”
The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court heard Ms Higgins had consumed 11 drinks earlier that night and, in the days after, had described herself as “barely lucid” and so intoxicated “I couldn’t write my own name”.
She initially reported the incident in April 2019, but the court heard she withdrew her complaint because she feared it would interfere with her job during an election campaign.
Almost two years later, in February 2021, she asked police to reopen the case after conducting interviews with two journalists.
But Mr Lehrmann’s barrister, Steven Whybrow, said Ms Higgins’s account of events contained holes and inconsistencies.
He said it was “the elephant in the room” that Ms Higgins went to the media before making her 2021 request to police – and he urged jurors to ignore previous media coverage which he said had snowballed.
He said her allegations had “rocked the entire political landscape”.
“Mark Twain once said: ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.’ And this case is the epitome of that phrase,” the barrister said.
Mr Lehrmann remained entitled to the presumption of innocence, he added.
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum also warned jurors the case had received “a fair measure of media publicity” but that it was “very important” they put this out of their minds.
Brittany Higgins gives evidence
Speaking in court for the first time, Ms Higgins said she had known Mr Lehrmann for less than a month before the alleged assault on 23 March, and that in the weeks before, he had tried to kiss her after a work event.
Earlier, in a recorded police interview played to the jury, Ms Higgins said she and Mr Lehrmann had agreed to share a ride home after a night out with colleagues but stopped at Parliament House.
Ms Higgins said she was “the most drunk I have been in my life” and had passed out on a couch.
She told police she woke to find Mr Lehrmann having sex with her. Crying, she told him “stop” and “no”.
“I wasn’t screaming but there was obviously an urgency to it,” she said in the 2021 interview. “He just kept going.”
When it was over, Mr Lehrmann quickly left the office, Ms Higgins said. “[There] was a strange moment of eye contact… I didn’t say anything to him.”
After waking up again hours later, with her dress bunched around her waist, Ms Higgins told police she went home and cried all weekend.
The following week, she told a senior staff member she had been assaulted.
“It didn’t feel real,” she said in the police tape. “[But] the moment I vocalised it, it hit me.”
In a separate police interview, Ms Higgins said she was nervous about telling her superiors about what had happened because she feared losing her job and felt “disposable”.
“The disparity between me and him was huge,” she said.
Jurors earlier heard that Ms Higgins initially reported the incident to police in April 2019, but withdrew her complaint because she feared it would interfere with her job during an election campaign.
Almost two years later, in February 2021, she asked police to reopen the case after conducting interviews with two journalists.
Prosecutors have told the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court they will argue that Ms Higgins was so intoxicated she would have been unable to consent to sex.
But Mr Lehrmann’s barrister has told jurors the case was about the “reliability” and “credibility” of Ms Higgins, saying there were “holes” in her account. His client denied the two ever had sex, he said, adding the Australian public had “been sold a pup with this story”.
The trial continues and is expected to run for up to six weeks.
Source: bbc.co.uk
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