Fiona Brown says there was ‘no cover-up’ for ‘political expediency’
Fiona Brown says there was ‘no cover-up’ for ‘political expediency’
Fiona Brown has said repeatedly there was no cover-up for “political expediency” and all the relevant agencies, including police and government departments, were informed of Brittany Higgins’ allegation.
“There was none, absolutely none,” she said. “These were two 23-year-olds and there was no cover-up. The police were consulted, the department of finance was consulted, the DPS [department of parliamentary services] knew. There was no cover-up.’’
Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC asked Brown if she had heard the allegation that there had been a cover-up by the government.
“There was no cover-up,” Brown said, adding that everyone that should have been informed was informed.
She said the two staffers were “not parliamentarians”, they were just “two 23-year-olds” and “no one would want to have that reported on”.
Key events
What we’ve heard so far today
Former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown returned to the witness box this morning, where she was cross examined by Sue Chrysanthou SC, who is acting for Lisa Wilkinson.
Here’s what we’ve heard so far:
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Brown said she was told to use “neutral language” when interviewing Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann, and that’s why she asked Higgins if “something had happened that she didn’t want to happen”.
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Brown said when Higgins said “Bruce was on top of me”, she was shocked, and said she can’t remember telling Senator Linda Reynolds in a phone call that Higgins had reported to her the words “Bruce was on top of me”.
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Brown agreed she didn’t follow Reynolds’ instruction to report the incident to police. Brown said a police report should not be made without Higgins, and that she believed agency meant that “a complainant needed to be in control and it was up to them to be in control”. “Higgins had still not given me an allegation … to me I needed more than that,” she said. Brown said the only information she had was that Higgins told her “he was on top of me”.
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Brown agreed that when she had a meeting with Reynolds and Higgins in the minister’s suite, she and Reynolds were in no doubt that Higgins had been found naked on the couch. However, she believed there was some doubt about whether when Higgins said “he was on top of me” it meant it was not consensual.
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Brown said she was surprised when she found out Higgins was proceeding with her complaint of rape with the sexual assault unit. She said she was surprised Higgins had not told her she’d been assaulted because she had expressed she was happy with the support she had received from her office: “We received almost gushing comments from Higgins”.
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Brown was asked about the process of finding Higgins another job during the 2019 election campaign. Chrysanthou asked Brown if the discussion about welfare concern was because Higgins had been assaulted, and Brown replied: “She’d never told me she’d been assaulted”.
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Chrysanthou questioned Brown about Lehrmann’s termination letter in which Higgins was not mentioned. Chrysanthou suggested that Higgins was deliberately left out of the termination letter despite one of the reasons for his termination being that he left Higgins in Parliament House without checking on her welfare. Brown disagreed.
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Brown said there was no “cover-up” for “political expediency” and all the relevant agencies including police and government departments were informed of Higgins’ allegation.
The trial will resume this afternoon.
Fiona Brown says there was ‘no cover-up’ for ‘political expediency’
Fiona Brown says there was ‘no cover-up’ for ‘political expediency’
Fiona Brown has said repeatedly there was no cover-up for “political expediency” and all the relevant agencies, including police and government departments, were informed of Brittany Higgins’ allegation.
“There was none, absolutely none,” she said. “These were two 23-year-olds and there was no cover-up. The police were consulted, the department of finance was consulted, the DPS [department of parliamentary services] knew. There was no cover-up.’’
Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC asked Brown if she had heard the allegation that there had been a cover-up by the government.
“There was no cover-up,” Brown said, adding that everyone that should have been informed was informed.
She said the two staffers were “not parliamentarians”, they were just “two 23-year-olds” and “no one would want to have that reported on”.
Barrister suggests Higgins deliberately omitted from Lehrmann’s termination letter
Fiona Brown is being questioned by Sue Chrysanthou SC about Bruce Lehrmann’s termination letter in which Higgins was not mentioned.
Brown said that leaving a colleague in the office without checking on her welfare was a health and safety issue. Lehrmann said he left the minister’s suite without checking on Higgins.
Chrysanthou suggested that Higgins was deliberately left out of the termination letter despite one of the reasons for his termination being that he left Higgins in Parliament House without checking on her welfare.
Brown disagreed.
Fiona Brown: ‘She’d never told me she’d been assaulted
Fiona Brown is now being asked about the process of finding Brittany Higgins another job during the 2019 election campaign.
There was internal discussion about Higgins doing social media for Linda Reynolds in Perth and about her moving to the Gold Coast to be closer to her family, the court heard.
Sue Chrysanthou SC asked Brown if the discussion about welfare concern was because Higgins had been assaulted.
Brown: “She’d never told me she’d been assaulted”.
Brown says she was surprised Brittany Higgins made rape complaint to police
Fiona Brown said she was surprised when she found out Brittany Higgins was proceeding with her complaint of rape with the sexual assault unit.
She said she was surprised Higgins had not told her she’d been assaulted because she had expressed she was happy with the support she had received from her office: “We received almost gushing comments from Higgins”.
“Ms Higgins clearly didn’t want to tell me or she would have told me,” Brown said.
Reynolds ‘dissatisfied’ with Lehrmann’s response to ‘show cause’ letter, Brown tells court
Fiona Brown is being asked questions about Bruce Lehrmann’s termination process.
After Lehrmann had packed up and left the office after a meeting with Brown he was sent a “show cause” letter about why he should not be sacked after a security breach.
Brown said she recalls Senator Linda Reynolds saying she was dissatisfied with Lehrmann’s response to the letter.
Brown agreed that she was told by Reynolds that the AFP commissioner told the minister on 4 April that a sexual assault had been reported.
Brown said she was not told about this conversation until 5 April.
Justice Lee denies request from Brown’s team to clear court of all but accredited media
Justice Michael Lee has denied a request from Fiona Brown’s legal team that the court be cleared of everyone but accredited media.
Her lawyers interrupted the cross-examination to say non-journalists were wandering “in and out” of the court which is contrary to the understanding that Brown could give her evidence in front of counsel and media only.
Lee said ‘no’ because he is opposed to closed courts and any citizen was free to see the administration of justice in action.
Bruce Lehrmann is not in court today.
Fiona Brown recounts meeting with Senator Reynolds, Brittany Higgins
Fiona Brown agreed that she sent a message saying Alex Hawke was “hot to trot”, by which she meant he wanted her to go to the police station to report what Brittany Higgins had said.
She has agreed that she resisted calls by Hawke and Senator Linda Reynolds to go to police, and that this led to her being fearful she may lose her job.
She said she thought the ministers were trying to protect their positions.
Brown agreed she gave Higgins information about calling a sexual assault hotline 1800respect.
Brown is now being asked about the meeting she had with Reynolds and Higgins in the minister’s suite.
She said the minister wanted to catch up with Higgins as they had “not spoken” since the incident “and it was a welfare check”.
She agreed that by that stage she and Reynolds were in no doubt that Higgins had been found naked on the couch.
However, she believed here was some doubt about whether when Higgins said “he was on top of me” it meant it was not consensual.
Brown agreed the topics that were discussed at the meeting included: if Higgins goes to police they will support her; that she should keep them informed; and that the minister said she was sorry.
Brown said Reynolds also said she had an experience in her life that she had “suppressed something” and it was important to be in control.
Fiona Brown wanted Brittany Higgins to have ‘agency’ over any reports to police
Justice Michael Lee has intervened and asked Fiona Brown if, given everything she knew about the circumstances of Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann being drunk and Higgins saying “he was on top of me”, she thought at the time that something sexual had happened, regardless of whether it was consensual or not.
Brown: “It was possible”.
Brown has said she resisted the orders of two ministers, Senator Linda Reynolds and Alex Hawke, to go to the police because she wanted to give Higgins agency.
Brown can’t explain why she didn’t takes notes of phone calls with Linda Reynolds
Fiona Brown has said she can’t recall certain conversations she had with colleagues about the incident.
“I was doing my professional best under a fast-paced environment,” she said.
Brown said she can’t explain why she did not take notes of her phone calls with Senator Linda Reynolds.
Brown said she can’t remember events that she didn’t take a note of.
Brown agreed that she did not follow senator Reynolds’ instruction to report the incident to police.
Senior staffer Lauren Barons had a conversation with Brown and expressed her concern that Higgins should have “agency” and it was up to her to make the report.
Brown said she agreed a police report should not be made without Higgins, and that she believed agency meant that “a complainant needed to be in control and it was up to them to be in control”.
“Higgins had still not given me an allegation … to me I needed more than that”.
Brown said the only information she had was that Higgins told her “he was on top of me”.
Fiona Brown ‘shocked’ when Brittany Higgins said ‘Bruce was on top of me’
Justice Michael Lee has asked Fiona Brown if it is fair for him to assume her contemporaneous notes are the best memory she has due to the stress she has suffered since the story came out, rather than relying on her memory of events. She agreed.
Brown said when Brittany Higgins said “Bruce was on top of me” she was shocked.
“It came out of the blue … there was no hint … it was a blindside and it took me by surprise,” Brown said.
Brown says she can’t remember telling Senator Linda Reynolds in a phone call that Higgins had reported to her the words “Bruce was on top of me”.
Fiona Brown says she was told to use ‘neutral language’ when interviewing Higgins, Lehrmann
Sue Chrysanthou SC has returned to her line of questioning about a meeting Fiona Brown had with Brittany Higgins on Thursday 28 March, which was the second meeting after the alleged rape.
Brown has qualified her answers by saying her answers are her “best recollection” “due to the mental trauma I’ve suffered”.
Brown said she was told to use “neutral language” when interviewing both Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann and that’s why she asked Higgins if “something had happened that she didn’t want to happen”.
She agrees that there is nothing in her contemporaneous notes about those instructions to use neutral language.
Fiona Brown says she doesn’t remember text exchange with News journalist
Sue Chrysanthou SC, acting for Lisa Wilkinson, has asked Fiona Brown about communication she had with journalist Samantha Maiden from news.com.au who broke the story.
Brown says she does not remember the text exchange but accepts it took place.
She said she was “shocked” to see the article.
In the message to Maiden she said she would leave any comment up to the prime minister’s spokesman Andrew Carswell.
Brown agrees she did tell Maiden to go to Carswell for a response.
Live stream disabled ahead of Fiona Brown’s cross-examination
Justice Michael Lee said Fiona Brown will have access to medical support when the recording of her evidence is streamed on the federal court YouTube channel tomorrow.
But the recording will be played in the interests of complete transparency.
Wednesday will be a non-sitting day so the parties can write their submissions.
The live stream has now been disabled, ahead of Brown entering the courtroom.
Former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown arrives at court to be cross-examined
Former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown has arrived at the federal court in Sydney to continue being cross-examined by Sue Chrysanthou SC, who is acting for Lisa Wilkinson.
Wilkinson is in court again today.
The public gallery is packed with accredited media as the live stream of the proceedings has been disabled until midday.
Brown requested to give her evidence without the live stream because of her mental health.
Justice Michael Lee has said he determined yesterday that it was in the interests of justice that the evidence be “streamed but not live streamed”.
After Brown’s evidence is complete the court will hear from UK-based lip reader Tim Reedy.
Welcome to live coverage of day 19 of the Lehrmann defamation trial
The cross-examination of former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown will continue this morning without the federal court’s live stream but with media present in the courtroom.
Brown was compelled to give evidence in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation trial yesterday after Justice Michael Lee rejected a request from her lawyer for her subpoena to be discharged on medical grounds.
Lee had the YouTube live stream disabled and the court sat until 7.45pm on Monday – more than three hours after the usual finishing time.
The judge said despite some criticism on social media that Brown was getting “special treatment” he was “taking appropriate judicial recognition of the evidence” and “ensuring there is public interest in open justice”.
Brown’s evidence is due to be replayed on the court’s YouTube channel on Wednesday morning.
Last night Lisa Wilkinson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, asked Brown about her meetings with Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins.
Lehrmann is suing Wilkinson and her employer Network Ten for an interview with Higgins that was broadcast on The Project in 2021. He alleges the story, which did not name him, defamed him by suggesting he raped Higgins in 2019.
On Monday morning the Queensland state MP Sam O’Connor said Higgins had told him that Lehrmann had raped her.
Lehrmann has always denied the rape allegation and, in a previous criminal trial, pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent. He denied that any sexual activity had occurred.
The criminal trial was aborted after it was discovered a juror had conducted their own research in relation to the case.
In December last year prosecutors dropped charges against Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Higgins, saying a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to her health.
