Brittany Higgins’ credibility is being scrutinised in the closing days of the trial for the man she accuses of raping her.
Bruce Lehrmann is being tried in the ACT Supreme Court after he pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent.
Ms Higgins alleges she was assaulted by Lehrmann inside the Parliament House office of former cabinet minister Linda Reynolds, for whom they worked as staffers, in 2019.
Prosecutor Shane Drumgold completed his closing argument on Tuesday, telling the jury Ms Higgins was an honest, credible witness who has not wavered in her sexual assault allegation.
He said Ms Higgins was facing a situation where political forces were at play and she was right to tread carefully.
But Lehrmann’s defence lawyer Steven Whybrow said a closer look at Ms Higgins’ evidence made the prosecution’s case against his client “totally untenable”.
He said the “kindest way” to sum up the case was to say Ms Higgins simply didn’t know what happened that night, but suggested she had motive to fabricate the allegations to save her job.
Mr Whybrow said “it would be pretty embarrassing” to be found asleep in a ministerial office and spark a security breach.
“Is there a reasonable possibility this complaint is being made because her ‘dream job’ is, from her perspective, in jeopardy?” Mr Whybrow said.
He suggested Ms Higgins woke up in parliament on Saturday morning after a night out drinking with colleagues and waited until “a more sensible hour” to leave, hoping no one would notice.
Mr Whybrow also suggested Ms Higgins fabricated doctor appointments at the time to “make it more believable” that she had been sexually assaulted.
He said there was no record of Ms Higgins attending these appointments and the reason she didn’t go was because she didn’t need to.
“The person (Ms Higgins) bringing the allegation is prepared to say anything,” he said.
“She says things that superficially support her position and then they turn out to be not reliable.”
But the prosecutor said if Ms Higgins did make up her allegation, it was an elaborate fabrication and she was “quite the actor”.
Mr Drumgold said Ms Higgins had not faltered in her evidence and was honest when she could not remember something.
He said her version of events had remained the same from the days after the alleged assault, to her police complaint two years later, to her appearance in the witness box.
Meanwhile, he said Lehrmann had given inconsistent accounts about his reasons for being at parliament on the night of the alleged assault to the security guards, to his boss and to the police.
Mr Drumgold said Lehrmann’s intent was to go to Parliament House with the “drunk” and “vulnerable” Ms Higgins.
“We say this was the most convenient place to get her (Ms Higgins) alone, not a sudden need to do some work in the middle of the night,” he said on Tuesday.
Mr Drumgold said the defence has argued Ms Higgins made up a complaint to keep her staffer job in Senator Reynolds’ office but pointed out she did not reapply for that job after the election.
He told the jury there were strong political forces at play in the period immediately after the alleged events, through the 2019 federal election and afterwards.
“It’s clear that this is a young lady in the middle of strong political forces,” he said.
“We say she was right to be scared, she was right to be cautious and she was right to move slowly and carefully.”
The closing argument for the defence continues on Wednesday.
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By Maeve Bannister in Canberra
