WA Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds has opened up a new battle front in her pursuit of damages against former staffer Brittany Higgins,taking to the court seeking details of a trust she fears may prevent her from gaining a financial remedy.
Lawyers for Reynolds confirmed they had lodged the application in the Supreme Court on Monday,which demands Higgins hand over details of a deed governing a protective trust bearing her name,including the trustee.
The former defence minister claims the trust was established around the same time she launched legal action against Higgins’ fiance,David Sharaz,and was carefully designed to safeguard her $2.4 million federal government compensation payout from being drawn upon in legal proceedings.
Reynolds,if successful,then intends to launch a bid to have the trust set aside under the state’s property act on the basis she fears funds may have been transferred to it to defeat potential creditors.
It is understood Reynolds’ lawyers had already made several unsuccessful attempts to secure a copy of the deed via Higgins’ solicitors in recent months.
The move is the latest levelled by Reynolds in a bid to shore up her ability to secure a financial remedy against Higgins in the event her defamation action is successful. It comes just months after Reynolds took the row to her former staffer’s new home country,engaging a French lawyer in her pursuit of a freezing order over Higgins’ European assets.
For more than a year,the former defence minister has been pursuing Higgins and Sharaz for damages,as well as aggravated damages,over several social media posts she claims were defamatory of her.
Both Higgins and Sharaz had been defending the defamation case until last week,when Sharaz publicly declared he did not have the financial means to pursue the matter - which he compared to the ill-fated Titanic - to trial.
A six-week trial has been set down for July 24 after an attempt at in-person mediation failed. Higgins’ lawyers had attempted to postpone the trial amid fears for her mental health.
However,the pursuit was shut down by Justice Paul Tottle,who ruled it was not expedient or in the interests of justice for the trial dates to be vacated.