Linda Reynolds victim of ‘heartless’ Labor attack after Brittany Higgins allegations, defamation trial hears

Senator Linda Reynolds was the victim of a “heartless” Labor attack in the Senate involving “aggressive behaviour” in the chamber, Tasmanian senator Wendy Askew has told a defamation trial.
The former defence minister is suing her former staffer Brittany Higgins over a series of social media posts containing alleged mistruths that she believes damaged her reputation.
Senator Askew told Western Australian supreme court on Friday that after Higgins went public in 2021 with accusations about the mishandling of her alleged rape and a political cover-up, Reynolds was targeted in parliament.
“I was very conscious of the questions being asked relentlessly throughout that period towards Senator Reynolds,” she said.
“Especially the aggressive behaviour, the way she was being targeted and even just the mannerisms across the chamber.
“They were just heartless.”
Askew said her friend and colleague of 20 years tried her best to answer the questions but the criminal nature of the rape allegation and security breach in her office meant it could become a police matter, preventing her.
“Watching her being asked repeatedly the same questions, similar questions in different ways, it really did take the toll on her,” she said.
Askew recalled the day Reynolds left the chamber “visibly upset” and distressed before she was rushed to a Canberra hospital suffering cardiac issues.
She said the senator regularly took leave after that following media reports or court cases related to Higgins’ allegations.
“Especially when the staff were being mentioned, we found that they were being impacted,” she said.
“There’s [also] been a number of occasions where we’ve had to send her to the nurse at parliament house and give her leave straight away so she can go to a doctor’s appointment or to the hospital.”
Askew said during some long parliamentary sittings the senator would say: “I just can’t do it. I can’t get through the day”.
Retired Liberal MP Steve Irons said he met Higgins at polling booths in Perth in the weeks after she was allegedly raped in Senator Reynolds’ ministerial suite.
“I found her to be bright, bubbly, good personality, friendly,” he said.
Higgins’ defence statement of claim says she felt “isolated, traumatised, depressed, unsupported and confused” during her time in Perth for the 2019 federal election campaign.
Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett asked the court for permission to subpoena Walkley award-winning journalist Nina Funnell to ascertain if she communicated with Higgins about a crowdfunding webpage to raise money for her legal fees and medical costs.
The Chuffed Stand With Brittany has raised more than $50,000 since it was launched on the same day Senator Reynolds started giving evidence during the trial.
Bennett said it and Higgins’ social media post during the first week of the trial about sexual violence against women mischaracterised the case and carry an imputation and criticism of Reynolds.
“If it’s done at the urging or in concert with Ms Higgins it’s a matter that Your Honour should probably take into consideration in terms of aggravation of damage,” he said.
Higgins’ Instagram post was a photo of a book titled How Many More Women? How the law silences women, along with the words: “Pertinent reading”.
Justice Paul Tottle said he would consider the matter.
It follows evidence from Senator Reynolds’ younger brother Andrew, who told the Perth court on Thursday he was “shocked” when news of Higgins’ alleged rape broke in 2021.
Higgins alleged that Bruce Lehrmann raped her in Reynolds’ office in 2019. Lehrmann has always denied the allegation and his criminal trial was derailed by juror misconduct. The charge against him was dropped after a second trial was abandoned due to fears about Higgins’ health.
As part of Lehrmann’s failed defamation trial against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, a federal court in April found that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Higgins.
“The idea that two young people had indulged in some way was not a surprise but obviously that an alleged rape had occurred, that was something that surprised me deeply,” Andrew Reynolds told court.
Andrew Reynolds rejected Higgins’ claim the senator had engaged in a political cover-up of the alleged sexual assault.
“I’ve known Linda for my entire life. The chances for, in my opinion, of her trying to hide something like this would have been nil,” he said.
“She’s been fighting for women’s issues, for justice all of her life.”
Andrew Reynolds said his sister was “devastated” by the allegations and appeared “obviously not well” when they caught up in Perth.
“To see her sitting on her couch in pyjamas rolled up in a ball … was very difficult.”
He said his sister told him “she’d done everything she possibly could at the time and that she’d insisted that she was ready to take Brittany to the police”.
“And that [her former chief of staff Fiona Brown] had suggested that it was more important to let Brittany make the calls on what to be done,” he said.
“We both knew that it was, it would be devastating to a career [if] this sort of mud sticks.”
Asked about negative social media comments directed at his sister, Andrew Reynolds said: “They’ve continued up to this day where Linda’s character is constantly degraded.”
“I had some pop up in my feed a couple of days ago where one particular person was saying that he doubted that Linda had the heart problems she claimed because he doubted she had a heart,” he said.
“She was a pile of human garbage and so forth.
“It happens all the time. You’ll see it on her Instagram feed … how could you cover this up and so forth?”