Linda Reynolds vs. Brittany Higgins defamation trial LIVE blog

Linda Reynolds is basing her campaign on key photos taken by Brittany Higgins campaigning with her in Perth during the 2019 federal election.

Ms Higgins has long maintained that Senator Reynolds and her former chief of staff Fiona Brown did little to support her after her rape in March 2019.

She alleged this in her $2.4 million settlement agreement with the Commonwealth in December 2022, which was full of allegations against her former bosses.

According to the settlement filing, which was released in federal court last year, Ms. Higgins told Ms. Reynolds and Ms. Brown that she had been raped and they told her to put it aside.

‘Ms Brown has made it clear through her words and behaviour that the events of 22/23 March 2019 must be put aside and that [Ms Higgins] “had to remain silent about the assault in order to keep her job/career,” the deed read.

‘In this context, [Ms Higgins] felt she had no choice but to drop the sexual abuse complaint to the AFP.’

She claimed that Ms Brown did not ask her whether she wanted to report the incident to the police or whether she needed legal advice.

Ms Higgins has long believed she was given an ultimatum after she revealed her allegations to Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown. She could either go with the minister to Perth and campaign for the upcoming election, or she could return to the Gold Coast and leave Canberra for good.

Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown previously told the court they had not given her an ‘ultimatum’ but she had the option of going to Perth. So she went in April 2019, weeks after the attack.

According to the deed, Ms. Higgins was required to work “primarily in her own hotel room, seven days a week for six weeks.” She has never made that claim in court before.

(Pictured below: Linda Reynolds gives a speech during the 2019 federal election. Brittany Higgins is seated in the front row, wearing black)

New photos released by the Supreme Court of Western Australia show Ms Higgins handing out flyers on the street, laughing with her colleagues and cheering during speeches, while wearing a blue Liberal Party polo shirt.

Ms Higgins poses for photos with then Prime Minister Scott Morrison and watches Ms Reynolds deliver a speech after the Coalition won the election.

On Friday, Reynolds’ attorney Martin Bennett told the court that Bennett said the evidence shows how Higgins and her husband David Sharaz falsely created a narrative that there was no support after her rape.

“The fact that she was raped was traumatic and horrible, but something more was needed to attract attention, to attract the attention of the media, to promote Mrs Higgins. That’s why she turned it into a political sex scandal,” he told the court.

“That was the fiction that needed a villain and they cast Linda Reynolds in that role.”

The deed also states that Ms Reynolds had no contact with her at all during the election campaign, but a photograph filed in two courts shows Ms Higgins sitting next to Ms Reynolds at her birthday party in Perth.

In that photo she was wearing the same dress she was raped in.

(Pictured below: Then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison gives a speech during the 2019 federal election. Brittany Higgins is seated in the back row, far left)