Linda Reynolds has said she experienced “incredible pain” and at one point left question time and started “sobbing uncontrollably” due to the media scrutiny over Brittany Higgins’ alleged rape.
She also told a defamation trial she was “incredulous” to hear that Labor were intending to “rain hell” on the senator and the Morrison government over the allegations.
The Western Australian Liberal senator is suing Brittany Higgins for a series of social media posts published in July 2023, which she says damaged her reputation.
In February 2021, Higgins publicly alleged that she had been raped in Parliament House by Bruce Lehrmann in March 2019.
On Tuesday, Reynolds described the events at the time, telling the WA supreme court she felt chest pain after Higgins’ allegations were published and recalled not being able to read or answer in question time as everything was “blurry”.
“That’s the dirty little secret about Parliament House – politicians are human beings as well,” she told the court.
She also said there had been a “media frenzy” after the story’s publication, with people in Parliament House looking at her differently and her own colleagues keeping their distance after she was accused of a political cover up.
Reynolds said she went one day from “doing her job and doing it well to being nationally vilified as someone who would do something so despicable and it became overwhelming”.
She also said that Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, who has since died, approached her in the Senate chamber to let her know Labor had found out about Higgins’ alleged rape. Reynolds said Kitching had told her Labor were intending to “rain hell” on the senator and the Morrison government.
While Reynolds said she did not consider Kitching a friend, she described her as a “trusted colleague”. Reynolds said Kitching had told her she had received an anonymous letter about the incident in the previous year and had passed it on to the AFP.
Reynolds said she remembered feeling “a bit incredulous that [Labor] would even contemplate doing such a thing”.
Justice Paul Tottle paused Reynolds for a moment to remind her not to interpret the emotions of others but to stick to what they said when she suggested Kitching’s decision to tell the AFP, over her colleagues, drew her Labor colleagues’ ire.
Reynolds said she planned to meet with the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, to let him know and intended to speak with the then Senate president Scott Ryan.
Reynolds paused to drink some water, saying she was losing her voice and she could feel her blood pressure rising. She said this memory was “particularly emotional” for her as it “led to Kitching’s death”.
The court temporarily adjourned until Reynolds’ health improved. Kitching died of a suspected heart attack in 2022 aged 52.
Reynolds also described the concern she felt when a Canberra Times journalist made an inquiry in October 2019 about an incident in early 2019.
Reynolds said she “immediately knew that it was related to the incident with Bruce and Brittany”.
Reynolds arranged for her then chief of staff, Alexandra Kelton, to speak with Michaelia Cash’s then chief of staff, Daniel Try. Higgins had taken a job in Cash’s office as a media adviser shortly after the May 2019 federal election.
The media inquiry never amounted to a story.
after newsletter promotion
Reynolds recalled asking Higgins when she left for the job in Cash’s office whether Reynolds should mention the incident to Higgins’ boss.
“She looked aghast and said ‘absolutely not’,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds also described feeling “sick” when she saw an article revealing Higgins’ allegation publicly for the first time.
“As angry and upset as I was going through, reading this, I also started to feel sorry for her because … I started thinking ‘what have we missed?’”
Reynolds later added she was “angry” at Higgins but also “angry at myself and how we had got it so wrong”.
Earlier, Reynolds said that she met the AFP assistant commissioner, Leanne Close, on Thursday 4 April 2019 in her office, where Reynolds claims she was first informed about Higgins’ alleged rape.
“I was a little shocked … I was glad to hear Brittany had taken the matter up,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds later sent a letter to her then employee Bruce Lehrmann, who allegedly raped Higgins. Reynolds said at the time she was in the process of sacking Lehrmann for an earlier security incident.
The letter, shown to the court, said the minister was “considering terminating [Lehrmann’s] employment on the basis of serious misconduct” and expected a response before 4pm on Friday 5 April.
Lehrmann responded he was “feeling embarrassed, ashamed and deeply remorseful” about the security breach and offered “no excuses”. He added Reynolds had been his sixth boss during his time working in Parliament House but remained “the best”.
Lehrmann was formally terminated from Reynolds’ office on Friday 5 April.
Reynolds is expected to face cross-examination on Wednesday.
Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young, has indicated she will seek to demonstrate Reynolds was aware of Higgins’ alleged rape by 1 April 2019 and that claims Higgins and her now husband, David Sharaz, concocted a conspiracy to damage her reputation are wrong.