Secret recordings, political pressure and deleted texts: Key moments from Brittany Higgins trial

Brittany Higgins was left on the brink of tears as lawyers for the man she alleges sexually assaulted her attacked her credibility – but more questions about her recollections are set to follow.

Secret recordings, clashes over deleted text messages and claims on the inner workings of the Liberal Party were at the centre of the first week of Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial.

Friday marked the end of week one of the high-profile trial inside the ACT Supreme Court during which the former Liberal staffer this week came face-to-face with her former colleague.

Mr Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to a single count of sexual intercourse with Ms Higgins without consent,with the former media adviser, her colleagues, Ministers and journalists all set to face questions over the next three to five weeks.

The pair, then 24, worked together at the time prosecutors allege the rape took place on the couch in then defence industry Minister Linda Reynolds’ office.

Mr Lehrmann denies having sex with her in the early hours of 23 March 2019.

WHY ‘TERRIFIED’ HIGGINS DELETED MESSAGES

An emotional Ms Higgins has denied she deleted data from her phone to conceal it from police, telling the court she was “terrified” after she learned Peter Dutton could be made aware of the incident.

During a tense cross-examination by defence counsel Steven Whybrow, Ms Higgins agreed that she declined to hand over her phone when requested by police in early February 2012.

Police made several requests over the next couple months for access to her phone, the court was told, to which she repeatedly pushed back.

Mr Whybrow presented to the court a text that Ms Higgins sent to her partner, David Sharaz, in which she told him she was clearing out her phone before handing it over.

“I was trying to give them to people, I wanted them to exist,” Ms Higgins said.

“This goes to the heart of why I was concerned about handing my phone to police – that week I found there’s a provision that any politically sensitive matters that are within the remit of police get reported to the home affairs Minister.

“Peter Dutton came out and said he had a baseline outline of my case before I even gave an evidence-in-chief interview.

“I know how information flows within the ministerial wing … I was very scared, so I was seeking legal advice to know my rights because I was terrified.”

Ms Higgins also “openly admitted” to scrubbing text messages and images of Coalition figures, including her former boss Senator Reynolds.

“It wasn’t done with the intent of keeping things from the police but purging things from my life once it went public,” she said.

“I never wanted to see Linda Reynolds’ face again, so I cleared her … I wanted to scrub all the horrible parts of my life out.”

HIGGINS FIRES BACK AT ‘DEEPLY INSULTING’ QUESTIONING

At one point, Ms Higgins fired back at Mr Whybrow after he repeatedly accused her of fabricating doctors appointments to bolster her rape allegations.

Earlier in the week, the former Liberal staffer had been presented with a text exchange with an ex-boyfriend who she disclosed the incident to.

In the text, the court was told, was the assurance that she would go to the doctor in the days following. In another text message with her then chief of staff Fiona Brown, she asked for a day off to go to the GP.

But Ms Higgins told the court her emotional state had left her “bed bound” and she was unable to follow through.

On Friday, the defence seized on her evidence, claiming the real reason she did not attend the doctor was because she “didn’t have sex with anyone on Friday night consensual or otherwise”.

“That’s not true, that’s not true,” Ms Higgins said.

“It was to bolster your false suggestion that something happened with Mr Lehrmann,” Mr Whybrow said.

“Nothing you're saying right now is true whatsoever, and it’s deeply insulting,” Ms Higgins said, becoming emotional.

It came just days after the jury was played the footage of a police interview in which Ms Higgins broke down in tears, telling detectives she kept conversations and doctor appointments off the books out of fear.

“I was cognisant of all the party implications all the way through,” she said.

“Because of the pressure I was feeling, I made it hard for myself. I would have conversations in person, I spoke on WhatsApp … I was so scared of coming forward, I made it harder for myself in hindsight.”

She wept after being asked about the lack of Medicare records of the doctors appointments she had later in 2019/20.

“I made it harder for myself to verify,” she cried, adding she had paid cash as a private patient for care.

PRESSURE TO RESIGN IF COMPLAINT PURSUED

Ms Higgins said pressure from inside the Liberal Party and a fear she would lose her job were the reason why she did not pursue her complaint with police in 2019.

The former Liberal staffer said former boss Ms Brown had been supportive in their first meeting where she first “vocalised” that she had been “assaulted” by Mr Lehrmann.

But the next meeting she had with Ms Brown and Senator Reynolds took place inside the suite where she claimed she was raped, the court was told.

“ (Minister Reynolds) said something to the effect of ‘I didn’t think he was capable of something like this’,” Ms Higgins said.

During the conversation, Ms Higgins said, Senator Reynolds apologised, but the conversation quickly turned to the upcoming election.

“My interpretation of that was; if I raised it with police, there were going to be problems, and they wanted to be involved or informed,” Ms Higgins said.

She said she wasn’t sure if it was a “scare tactic” or “intimidation tactic” to speak with her in the same room she was allegedly assaulted, but it felt like an “adversarial space”.

“This could, theoretically, be perceived in the broader public sense as a political problem for the Liberal Party with women,” Ms Higgins told the court.

HIGGINS’ COVERT RECORDINGS OF CABINET MINISTER

On Thursday, Ms Higgins told the court that she secretly recorded a conversation about her alleged sexual assault because she was afraid no one would believe her.

After the 2019 election, Ms Higgins left Senator Reynolds’ office to take up a job offer within the office of then employment Minister Michaelia Cash.

Following her resignation last year, Ms Higgins recorded a phone conversation with Senator Cash without her knowledge, the court was told.

She described the call as “the weirdest call of my life”, as the senator spoke about a security guard being the alleged perpetrator.

The jury was told that Ms Higgins then distributed the recordings for “safekeeping” to friends, including a journalist.

“It was my word against a cabinet minister. The power disparity between them is ridiculous,” she said.

It came shortly after Ms Higgins admitted to recording a conversation with Senator Cash’s then chief of staff Daniel Try.

“It was for my legal protection, just to corroborate … I didn’t know if (journalist Samantha Maiden) believed me 100 per cent,” she said.

‘I STAND BY IT’

Ms Higgins told the court that she stood by her decision to not reinstate her complaint with police until after she conducted a sit-down interview with The Project’s Lisa Wilkinson.

“I thought I would do one print, one TV (interview) and go back to uni and disappear,” she said.

“I stand by my choice. I am not ashamed of that.”

STORY BECAME NOT ABOUT ME

But over time Ms Higgins felt her alleged rape became “not about me or my story” after she went public to Ms Wilkinson and Maiden.

She told the court there had been tensions between the two journalists over the exclusive rights of the story.

Under cross-examination, the defence suggested she had planned the media strategy in order to cause damage to the Liberal Party.

“I wanted to talk about something that had happened to me. I never necessarily thought that the police would ever prosecute this argument. I never thought I'd get here.

“I never thought his name would ever be published.”

In a short snippet of audio from a January 27 meeting between Ms Higgins, her partner and Ms Wilkinson, Mr Sharaz detailed a timeline when the story would drop.

“It’s a sitting week when we want the story to come out,” her partner told Wilkinson.

In the audio, he added that he would speak to his “friend”, senator Katy Gallagher, so she could continue pressing the government on the matter later in Senate estimates.

“It’s a mess for them … that’s why Britt picked that timeline,” he said.

Ms Higgins told the court that her partner’s political views were not her own. She added that she loved the Liberal Party and wanted to reform it.

“It sounds absurd. I didn’t necessarily want to hurt them,” she said.