Hours after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said his Liberal colleague had been vindicated by Federal Court Justice,the West Australian senator became the first MP embroiled in the saga to speak out. Dutton also suggested Higgins and Sharaz should apologise to her.
David Sharaz,Brittany Higgins and Linda Reynolds are entwined in defamation proceedings in WA.Trevor Collens
“For three years I have endured intense public scrutiny,vilification,vile trolling and have been demonised as the villain in a story of a political cover-up I have always known to be untrue,” Reynolds said.
She said both her and her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown had lost their careers,“had our reputations destroyed and have had our health seriously and irreparably compromised”.
Reynolds,the former boss of Lehrmann and his accuser Higgins,has faced years of criticism over her handling of Higgins’ rape allegation,which was proven true on the balance of probabilities in Federal Court judge Michael Lee’s verdict on Monday.
While not central to the case,the judge said Higgins and Sharaz “from the first moment” had pushed a narrative of a political cover-up to journalists in 2021,which he found no evidence for.
Reynolds said it “would be an understatement” to say she was pleased with Lees’ findings,calling it the “cover-up that never was”.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Liberal senator Linda Reynolds was vindicated by the defamation judgment.Paul Jeffers
Speaking to the press in Perth on Tuesday,Dutton said Reynolds had “absolutely been vindicated”.
“She’s a first-class individual,a person of great honour and integrity,her reputation has been besmirched,and she’s right to pursue the matter in the way that she is,” he said,referring to Reynolds’ defamation suits,which include one against Higgins and Sharaz over social media comments.
“I would have thought,off the back of the judgment yesterday,people would be looking to settle the matter against Linda Reynolds and issuing a full apology to her for the way in which her reputation has been tarnished.”
Reynolds launched two separate defamation claims against Higgins and Sharaz in the WA Supreme Court last year over statements the couple published on their separate social media accounts.
Both Higgins and Sharaz have defended their respective cases,which are being heard concurrently due to their overlap.
While the parties have been engaged in mediation,Reynolds’ lawyer,Martin Bennett,warned the court during an April 3 hearing that parties should prepare for the six-week trial scheduled for July 24.
“If we sit around hoping for things to settle,they never do,” he said. A spokesperson for Bennett confirmed the defamation action is still pending.
Reynolds said Justice Lee’s findings “are not binding on Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz in respect of their defences to my actions in the Supreme Court of WA”.
“I therefore remain committed to fully vindicating my reputation,” she said.
Lawyers for Higgins and Sharaz have been contacted for comment.
Higgins provided evidence to Lehrmann’s defamation proceedings last year that the reason she spoke to media was because she didn’t want to be “complicit” in a cover-up over the sexual assault,and said during Lehrmann’s abandoned 2022 criminal trial she felt pressured not to pursue the complaint.
Reynolds denied this during the trial,saying she encouraged Higgins to go to the police.
Former ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold,SC,also sensationally suggested a political conspiracy to derail Lehrmann’s prosecution during an inquiry into the case last year before recanting the allegation the next day.
Last month,Reynolds received a formal apology and a $90,000 settlement from the ACT government over defamatory comments made by Drumgold in a letter to the territory’s Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan that became public.
Justice Lee said:“When examined properly and without partiality,the cover-up allegation was objectively short on facts but long on speculation and internal inconsistencies – trying to particularise it during the evidence was like trying to grab a column of smoke. But despite its logical and evidentiary flaws,Ms Higgins’ boyfriend selected and contacted two journalists and then Ms Higgins advanced her account to them,and through them,to others.”
Dutton said Lee should be congratulated on his judgment after going through the case “with a fine-tooth comb”.
“He’s obviously a first-class operator. I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting him only on one occasion. He’s a particularly impressive individual and it should restore faith,if there was a doubt in faith,of our judicial system and what operates there. It’s obviously a highly complex,sordid affair,” he said.
The case is one of several legal proceedings triggered by Lehrmann’s criminal trial,which was aborted in October 2022 due to juror misconduct.
In March 2021,Reynolds agreed to pay damages to Higgins as part of a defamation settlement over calling her former staffer a “lying cow”. Reynolds maintains she did not make the comment in relation to the rape allegation but in response to news reports about her handling of it.
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