Brittany Higgins has completed her evidence in the defamation trial brought by the man she alleges raped her at Parliament house. Bruce Lehrmann is suing network ten and Lisa Wilkinson over an interview with Ms Higgins on the project.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Ms Higgins was asked about a range of topics on this final day of cross-examination. One
00:07 of the critical topics that was explored was her level of intoxication on the night that
00:13 she and Mr Lehrman returned to Parliament House after a night out drinking. Now, Ms
00:18 Higgins had previously given evidence that she was 10 out of 10 drunk, the most intoxicated
00:26 that she had ever been in her life. That was challenged by Mr Lehrman's barrister, Stephen
00:31 Weibrow today. Now, the court played some of the security vision, which had been seen
00:38 on multiple occasions previously, and Mr Weibrow put to Ms Higgins that she didn't appear to
00:44 be 10 out of 10 drunk when she was walking through the metal detector in high heels in
00:51 a straight line. Ms Higgins rejected that and said she was very drunk and pointed to
00:57 vision slightly later on the tape, which shows her skipping through one of the corridors
01:04 barefoot and said that would indicate someone who was very drunk. Later today, she was also
01:11 asked about the speech that she gave when the criminal trial against Mr Lehrman was
01:17 aborted because of a juror's misconduct. Ms Higgins gave a speech outside the ACT Supreme
01:23 Court in which she asserted the truth of her allegation, despite the fact that a retrial
01:29 at that stage was still pending. Mr Weibrow put to her that that speech was deliberately
01:35 designed to thwart the prospect of a retrial because she was concerned that a jury might
01:42 find Mr Lehrman not guilty. Ms Higgins responded to that by saying that she wasn't hiding from
01:49 anyone, she'd just been through a criminal trial and she knew that statistically a conviction
01:55 in a sexual assault trial may not be particularly likely. But the reason she was asked that
02:01 is because she was later asked about why it was that even after that trial was, after
02:08 the prosecution was abandoned, she made it so clear that she was willing to testify in
02:14 a civil proceeding and in Brittany Higgins' own words, she said she did not want her rapist
02:20 to become a millionaire. Now, of course, Mr Lehrman has had no findings against him after
02:27 that trial was aborted, that retrial was abandoned out of concerns for Ms Higgins' health. And
02:34 so that was the final topic on which Ms Higgins was quizzed about before that cross-examination
02:41 did conclude this afternoon after more or less three days and four days of evidence
02:47 in total. And what was said about the settlement Ms Higgins received from the Commonwealth?
02:51 Well, Ms Higgins has revealed the precise detail of that settlement. We had heard that
02:59 there was some sort of multi-million dollar payout that had been made. Ms Higgins today
03:05 confirmed to the court that she received $1.9 million as part of that settlement. She said
03:13 the gross amount that was agreed to was in fact a little higher, but once you took out
03:19 taxes and legal fees, she received $1.9 million. And she said that was because the Commonwealth
03:26 had accepted that it had failed in its duty of care towards her.
03:31 And so what happens now?
03:33 Well, the trial now moves into a new phase, and that is the phase where Network 10 will
03:40 call more than 20 supporting witnesses to try and assist it prove the substantial truth
03:49 of its reporting in that interview with Ms Higgins on the project. So from tomorrow,
03:54 we expect to hear from Ms Higgins' housemate at the time of the alleged assault, and also
04:01 two of the other people who were with Ms Higgins and Mr Learman at both the Canberra pub that
04:07 they started at that night, and then the nightclub they attended before going back to Parliament
04:13 House. So still plenty more to come from this trial, despite Ms Higgins' evidence concluding.
04:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]