Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, Here's what's
Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, August eighth.
Speaker 1: A new theory about autism from a decade long study
Speaker 1: revealed in The Australian Today. Baby boys with lower levels
Speaker 1: of a crucial brain enzyme are six times more likely
Speaker 1: to develop autism, but only if their mothers have been
Speaker 1: exposed to a plastic chemical found in food and drink
Speaker 1: containers and cosmetics. The link is revealed in a story
Speaker 1: Live right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: If you thought the Bruce Lammon defamation trial was big,
Speaker 1: well buckle your seat belts for the Brittany Higgins trial.
Speaker 1: This is the former Liberal staff for being sued for
Speaker 1: defamation by her old boss, sitting Senator Linda Reynolds. Higgins
Speaker 1: accuses Reynolds of re traumatizing her after Higgins told the
Speaker 1: senator she'd been raped on Reynolds's office. So far, Reynolds
Speaker 1: says she didn't know such thing, and the trial has
Speaker 1: spun into a wild series of allegations and side shows.
Speaker 1: That's today's story. The biggest news story of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four was the Bruce Lammon versus Network ten defamation trial.
Speaker 1: The man accused of rape by Brittaney Higgins sued the
Speaker 1: TV station and it's star journalist and lost in spectacular fashion.
Speaker 2: I'm satisfied that it is more likely than not that
Speaker 2: mister Lehman's state of mind was such that he was
Speaker 2: so intent upon gratification to be indifferent to Miss higgins
Speaker 2: consent and hence where he was sexual intercourse without caring
Speaker 2: whether she consented.
Speaker 1: Well, that was then. Now we're living through a trial
Speaker 1: that makes Lehman versus Ten look like a fairly minor skirmish.
Speaker 1: Reynolds versus Higgins is total war, shock and awe. There
Speaker 1: are so many battlefronts it's hard to keep up. The
Speaker 1: action is raging inside court and out, and especially in
Speaker 1: the place where it all began, social media. This time,
Speaker 1: Brittany Higgins is the defendant and the plaintiff is a
Speaker 1: former cabinet minister in the Morrison government, Linda Reynolds, who
Speaker 1: is angry and bent on what she believes is justice
Speaker 1: for being wrongfully accused.
Speaker 3: Wanting no words to adequately describe what it is like
Speaker 3: being accused of covering up the rape of a young
Speaker 3: woman in my office in a way I knew was
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 1: The case is being heard in the West Australian Supreme
Speaker 1: Court and we're using voice actors to bring you the
Speaker 1: words spoken in court. First up, Linda Reynolds.
Speaker 3: I found it almost impossible to process mentally. All of
Speaker 3: a sudden, in the space of a couple of days,
Speaker 3: I had gone from a senator and a minister doing
Speaker 3: her job and doing it well, to being nationally vilified
Speaker 3: as someone who would do something so despicable.
Speaker 1: Reynolds is suing over tweets and Instagram stories by Higgins
Speaker 1: and her husband David Sharraz made in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: She says they were published as part of a plan
Speaker 1: by Higgins and Charaz, a conspiracy to inflict immediate political
Speaker 1: damage upon Reynolds and the former Morrison government. We've used
Speaker 1: voice actors to bring you some of those posts.
Speaker 4: This is from a current Australian senator who continues to
Speaker 4: harass me through the media and in the Parliament instead
Speaker 4: of solving the problem. There are people who would prefer
Speaker 4: to just silence victims.
Speaker 1: Linda Reynolds says the posts imputed that she was a
Speaker 1: hypocrite who didn't care about women's equality and who had
Speaker 1: deliberately minimized Higgins's account of rape, something Reynold says she'd
Speaker 1: never do.
Speaker 3: They're incredibly hurtful. They are making allegations I know are
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 1: She said. On one occasion, Charaz posted I see you.
Speaker 3: When someone says Linda, I see you, Apart from a
Speaker 3: stalky nature of saying something like that, it's that subtle
Speaker 3: reminder of the lies they had been propagating for a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 1: All this happened two years after Higgins first told her
Speaker 1: story of being raped on the couch in Reynolds's office
Speaker 1: to Tend's TV show The Project and to news dot
Speaker 1: com You Tonight. Claims of rape roadblocks to a police
Speaker 1: investigation and a young woman forced to choose between her
Speaker 1: career and the pursuit of justice. Higgins said in her
Speaker 1: Project interview that Reynolds and her then chief of staff,
Speaker 1: Fiona Brown had failed to take proper care of her.
Speaker 5: I would try and raise it, and I would try
Speaker 5: and bring it up.
Speaker 3: Then it was always it always sort of came back
Speaker 3: to sort of being a mere issue, and it said
Speaker 3: you can't deal with it, then you can leave.
Speaker 1: Both Reynolds and Fiona Brown vehemently denied Higgins's claims in
Speaker 1: a Lamban defamation trial. Brown said she had in fact
Speaker 1: walked Higgins down to the police office within Parliament House,
Speaker 1: but had respected Higgins's wishes not to pursue a police
Speaker 1: complaint at the time. Brown also gave evidence that when
Speaker 1: Reynolds heard about Higgins's allegation, she insisted Brown go to police,
Speaker 1: whether Higgins wanted to or not. In the earlier deformation trial,
Speaker 1: just as Michael Lee did not believe there was evidence
Speaker 1: of a conspiracy.
Speaker 6: As we will see when examined properly and without partiality,
Speaker 6: the cover up allegation was subjectively short on facts, but
Speaker 6: long on speculation and internal inconsistencies. Trying to particularize it
Speaker 6: during the evidence was like trying to grab a column
Speaker 6: of smoke.
Speaker 1: Remember, Linda Reynolds brought this case to court. There have
Speaker 1: been months of failed attempts to mediate and at one
Speaker 1: point David Cheraz said he was out of money and
Speaker 1: out of energy to defend it. What Reynolds has wanted
Speaker 1: all along is an apology after the verdict in a
Speaker 1: Lamban defamation trial, Higgins issued this.
Speaker 4: Senator Reynolds and Fiona Brown have also been hurt, and
Speaker 4: for that, I am also sorry. My perceptions and feelings
Speaker 4: about what happened in the days and weeks after my
Speaker 4: rape are different from theirs. I deeply regret that we
Speaker 4: have not yet found common ground. Hope we can resolve
Speaker 4: our differences with a better understanding of each other's experience.
Speaker 1: It didn't help. Bruz Laman is appealing the finding in
Speaker 1: the earlier trial, and he's always denied raping Brittany Higgins.
Speaker 1: On Friday, the Reynolds versus Higgins trial opened with Reynolds's barrister,
Speaker 1: Martin bennettesc indicating this trial was going to be big.
Speaker 5: Miss Higgins reconstructed in her mind a series of events
Speaker 5: used to damnify my client. Every fairy tale needs a villain.
Speaker 5: Miss Higgins and her then partner and now husband, mister Schiraz,
Speaker 5: cast Senator Reynolds in that role for their fictional story
Speaker 5: of a cover up of the rape. The fact she
Speaker 5: had been raped was traumatic and terrible, but it needed
Speaker 5: something more to attract the attention, to attract media interest,
Speaker 5: to attract the promotion of miss Higgins. So she made
Speaker 5: it a political sex scandal. That's the fiction that needed
Speaker 5: a villain, and she cast Linda Reynolds in that role.
Speaker 1: Bennett reference to photographs of Higgins after the alleged rape
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, smiling and laughing on the campaign trail
Speaker 1: in WA, not sitting alone in her room, ostracized and isolated,
Speaker 1: as she'd claimed. He also quoted texts sent by Higgins
Speaker 1: to her then boyfriend indicating she was enjoying her time
Speaker 1: in WA.
Speaker 4: My day has been awesome, mostly spent poolside. It's been
Speaker 4: really nice, liking the WA office. I can't wait for
Speaker 4: the ANZAC Day festivities.
Speaker 1: What became clear this week is that the attacks on
Speaker 1: Reynolds by Higgins up until now are nothing compared to
Speaker 1: what's coming. In her opening address to the court, Higgins's barrister,
Speaker 1: Rachel Young sc demonstrated Higgins is now going to attempt
Speaker 1: to prove the truth of what she says is Reynold's
Speaker 1: misconduct in court where she has absolute privilege to say
Speaker 1: what she thinks without the threat of future defamation action.
Speaker 1: Miss Higgins's truth, her truth as to the rape is
Speaker 1: uncontested by the Senator. Young took issue with Bennette's description
Speaker 1: of Higgins's case as a fairy tale that needed a villain.
Speaker 1: She said it was no fairy tale for.
Speaker 7: The Senator, through her oral and written opening, to suggest
Speaker 7: it may be so is misplaced, harassing and retraumatizing.
Speaker 1: Young said Higgins's case would show that Reynold's handling of
Speaker 1: the matter had been inadequate.
Speaker 7: Miss Higgins was a junior employee without job security who
Speaker 7: had been raped at work. The power discrepancy is palpable.
Speaker 1: And Young question the very basis of Reynold's claim.
Speaker 7: The focus of her case relies upon a novel extension
Speaker 7: of the law of aggravated damages and taught conspiracy. The conspiracy,
Speaker 7: was later added by the Senator, is wrong and should
Speaker 7: not be found.
Speaker 1: Coming up the dramatic out of courts scuffles going on
Speaker 1: all at the same time. That's after the break. In
Speaker 1: recent days, Linda Reynolds has given emotional evidence under questioning
Speaker 1: from her own barrister. She described being questioned about Higgins
Speaker 1: in Parliament in twenty nineteen after Higgins went public.
Speaker 3: I was standing there in incredible pain. I'd stood up
Speaker 3: every single day, I'd faced down the questions. I just
Speaker 3: couldn't go on. I couldn't read what was on the
Speaker 3: piece of paper. I just started sobbing uncontrollably. I was literally,
Speaker 3: completely and utterly incoherent.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, sheked the twenty twenty two death of Senator
Speaker 1: Kimberly Kitching, a labor politician who died of a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Reynolds said that before she died, Kitching had told her
Speaker 1: Labor was coming to get Reynolds over Higgins's allegations.
Speaker 3: I was completely incredulous. I said to her, why would
Speaker 3: anybody reponize such an incident. I still can't find the
Speaker 3: words to describe. Even for Labor, and they pulled some
Speaker 3: pretty nasty stunts, but this I actually found it hard
Speaker 3: to believe.
Speaker 1: Reynolds said after the incident with Lemon, she worked closely
Speaker 1: with Higgins in WA where Higgins was helping the Liberal campaign.
Speaker 3: I thanked her for her great work. I was genuinely
Speaker 3: impressed with her. She had thrown herself into the campaign.
Speaker 3: She genuinely loved campaigning, and she was really good. She
Speaker 3: had stepped up.
Speaker 1: Reynold said. She admitted calling Higgins a lying cow. While
Speaker 1: watching the project's story on TV, she said though that
Speaker 1: wasn't a claim Higgins was lying about the rape, she
Speaker 1: meant that Higgins was lying about Reynold's response.
Speaker 3: I was incredibly angry. I was incredibly hurt. She probably
Speaker 3: didn't even realize this, but she couldn't have picked a
Speaker 3: worse issue to bring me down. It's such an abhorrent
Speaker 3: thing to say to any woman that you've mistreated the
Speaker 3: very pallagation, and that you have not only done that,
Speaker 3: but you have also covered it up.
Speaker 1: Brittaney Higgins is not in Perth for this trial yet
Speaker 1: the court has heard. She's in France, where she and
Speaker 1: Schiraz bought and then sold of property in a small village.
Speaker 1: On Monday, she posted this pertinent reading with a screenshot
Speaker 1: of a book title, how Many More Women, How the
Speaker 1: Law Silences Women. Reynolds said this about the post, It's.
Speaker 3: Just validated why I'm taking these proceedings, because she will
Speaker 3: not stop, and even during this trial, she will not stop.
Speaker 1: Then a skirmish broke out about a crowdfunding page started
Speaker 1: for Higgins by another famous advocate for survivors of sexual assault,
Speaker 1: Saxon Mullins. The fundraising page says this.
Speaker 8: Many hoped the judgment would mark the end of this
Speaker 8: legal saga and Brittany would be free to move on
Speaker 8: and heal in private. However, Brittany is now being sued
Speaker 8: for defamation by a former boss Bruce Lehman, who denies
Speaker 8: the rape, is also appealing Justice Lee's decision. Brittany, who
Speaker 8: is pregnant, needs our support now more than ever.
Speaker 1: As soon as court resumed, Martin Bennett, the lawyer for
Speaker 1: Linda Reynolds, told the judge this was an attempt.
Speaker 5: To capture some public opinion.
Speaker 1: Rachel Young, Higgins's barrister, said it was beyond any stretch
Speaker 1: of the imagination that the fundraising page was connected to
Speaker 1: Higgins and Scharraz's alleged conspiracy to defame the Senator. The judge,
Speaker 1: just as Paul Tottle, granted a subpoena which means Higgins
Speaker 1: team has to hand over any communications about that page.
Speaker 1: Linda Reynolds mentioned in court on Wednesday another social post
Speaker 1: by Higgins in which she.
Speaker 4: Wrote, I won't stay silent so you can stay comfortable.
Speaker 3: Reynolds said this, I can assure you taking these proceedings
Speaker 3: putting my house on the line, everything that I've worked
Speaker 3: for for forty years, putting everything on the line to
Speaker 3: be able to be here today and tell the truth
Speaker 3: that just took the cake. We're not doing this to
Speaker 3: stay comfortable.
Speaker 1: Later in this trial, Brittney Higgins herself will give evidence.
Speaker 1: Her time in the witness box is set down for
Speaker 1: five full days, but before that, Higgins's barrister will cross
Speaker 1: examine Linda Reynolds. We've got live updates from the courtroom
Speaker 1: all day at Beaustralian dot com dot au. Join our
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Speaker 1: back to the front for updates