Higgins first made her allegations of sexual assault in the media in February 2021,without naming the alleged perpetrator.
She said she had been raped by a Liberal colleague in the parliamentary office of their boss at the time,then-defence minister Linda Reynolds.
Brittany Higgins at the ACT Supreme Court last October.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The matter sparked huge controversy for then-prime minister Scott Morrison and his government.
In August 2021,former Liberal staffer Lehrmann,who worked with Higgins in Reynolds’ office,was charged with sexual assault.
Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence of charges,saying no sexual contact took place between him and Higgins,and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
He is now suing various media outlets for defamation for publishing Higgins’ claims.
The criminal matter went on trial in October 2022 but was aborted following juror misconduct,and a retrial was abandoned due to concerns over Higgins’ mental health.
Since then,the police investigation itself has been mired in controversy.
In November last year,Chief Prosecutor Shane Drumgold,SC,wrote a letter to the ACT’s police chief Neil Gaughan complaining that police officers had engaged in “a very clear campaign to pressure” him not to proceed with the prosecution of Lehrmann for the alleged rape.
Drumgold accused them of “clear investigator interference in the criminal justice process”.
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He also said that Higgins felt bullied by police investigators and that they had cherry-picked evidence to make the case seem unviable.
The spill-over of the toxic relationship between the agencies led to the ACT government launching an inquiry into the investigation of the case.
In January,it was announced the respected former judge Walter Sofronoff,KC,would lead that inquiry,which is now under way.