Brittany Higgins has broken her silence after Bruce Lehrmann’s first televised interview to share an exchange that took place in Michaelia Cash’s office a month before her sexual assault allegations went public.
Ms. Higgins posted a series of screenshots to Twitter documenting a conversation she had in January 2021 with Senator’s Cash Chief of Staff Daniel Try.
She expressed concern about experiencing “PTSD-type panic attacks” in the aftermath of an ABC Four Corners segment Inside the Canberra Bubble.
“When this kind of story pops up once in a while, it just repeats it,” she said.
“I’m just having a hard time with it…so that’s why I personally took the day off yesterday. I see a new psychiatrist helping me.’
Brittany Higgins has broken her silence after Bruce Lehrmann’s first televised interview to share an exchange that took place in Michaelia Cash’s office a month before her sexual assault allegations were made public (Ms. Higgins and Senator Cash pictured)
Mr Try assured Ms Higgins that her alleged ordeal was ‘less likely to become an interesting story as time went on’, noting ‘it’s just going to be a rumored incident, what happened, what, it’s been almost two years now?’
He also said it was the kind of complaint a senator “wouldn’t touch with a 12-foot pole” when Ms. Higgins expressed concern about the case going public.
Mr. Try repeatedly asked if there was anything he or Mrs. Cash’s office could do to help, to which Mrs. Higgins assured him that her problem was not with them.
He said he did everything he could without making Ms. Higgins feel like she was being treated differently in her day-to-day role.
Ms Higgins said she was upset because she felt like she was a “team player who handled it around the house.”
A month after the conversation took place, Ms Higgins was set to appear on The Project detailing allegations that she had been sexually assaulted by Bruce Lehrmann in 2019 in the office of then Defense Secretary Linda Reynolds at Parliament House.
During Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial – which resulted in a mistrial for jury misconduct – Ms Higgins revealed that she secretly recorded a telephone conversation with Ms Cash in the days after she stepped down.
Ms. Higgins justified that decision by saying she had recorded the conversation as a security measure.
“It was my word to a minister. The power difference between them is ridiculous,” she said.
She also revealed that she recorded the conversation with Mr Try for legal protection.
Ms. Higgins (pictured) posted a series of screenshots to Twitter documenting a conversation she had in January 2021 with Senator’s Cash Chief of Staff Daniel Try.
“Just to confirm… I didn’t know if[journalist Samantha Maiden]believed me 100 percent,” she said.
Ms Higgins claimed in court that Ms Cash knew about her allegations way back in October 2019 – something Ms Cash strongly denies.
Ms Cash claimed she actually learned of the allegations the same month they became public, in February 2021. She claimed that Ms Higgins “told her out of the blue” before stepping down.
Prosecutor Shane Drumgold SC suggested in court that she must have had ‘relatively detailed conversations’ with Ms Higgins about the incident in October 2019, when a Canberra Times journalist inquired about the night.
“No sexual element, no,” said Ms. Cash. “The first time she mentioned a sexual element I think was in the conversation on February 5, 2021.”
Daily Mail Australia previously revealed that The Project presenter Lisa Wilkinson appeared to support the secret recording idea during a five-hour meeting with her producer Angus Llewellyn, Ms Higgins and her boyfriend David Sharaz in a Sydney hotel room on January 27, 2021.
Ms Cash, the opposition’s legal affairs spokeswoman, has spoken of her shock at the “incredibly disturbing” revelations.
Ms Higgins claimed in court that Ms Cash (pictured) knew about her allegations way back in October 2019 – something Ms Cash strongly denies
“Channel 10, The Project and Lisa Wilkinson have some very, very serious questions to answer,” Senator Cash told Sky News.
“The whole of Australia really should see what happened in that interview – that a senior journalist in Lisa Wilkinson and the producer of The Project actively encouraged a young woman in distress to actually commit what is considered an illegal crime. considered. .’
Ms Cash denounced Wilkinson and her producer’s alleged behavior for encouraging Ms Higgins to record her and called on Channel 10 to release the full transcript of the luncheon.
“I would call on Channel 10 to formally release the five hours so we can all see what happened in this interview,” she said.
She added: “The encouragement to record a phone call and search the jurisdiction to find a forum where there is a loophole – that is incredibly disturbing to all Australians, that a news broadcast should encourage you to do that. ‘
Ms Wilkinson and Ms Higgins met over a long lunch five days before her televised rape allegations against fellow politician Bruce Lehrmann.
The purpose of the luncheon was to decide how best to handle Ms Higgins’ upcoming interview on The Project, which aired two weeks later, in which she claimed she had been raped by Mr Lehrmann in Parliament House in 2019.
Mr Lehrmann has always denied the allegations. His trial on the charges ended without a verdict, as the jury was dismissed when a juror brought in outside material for consideration.
During the pre-show talk, the group spoke at length about Ms. Higgins’ experience as an assistant media adviser to former Labor Secretary Michaelia Cash in the years following her alleged assault.
A court previously heard that Ms. Higgins revealed her alleged rape to several colleagues, including Senator Cash, but she ultimately decided not to take the case to the police because she feared she would lose her job.
However, at the January 2021 meeting, Ms Higgins said she had gathered the information to use as evidence, saying all the devices used by parliamentary assistants had software installed by the government.