Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial live: Brittany Higgins tells court accusation she lied about rape to keep job is ‘insulting’ and ‘incorrect’

Key events

Higgins questioned about sequence of events

Steve Whybrow SC asked Higgins: “I’m suggesting to you that you alter and evolve your evidence as you find that extra information. Do you accept that?”

Higgins replied: “No, it’s just when something’s put to me, that’s clear. I didn’t refute that. Clearly this is this timeline and I can understand that memory is imperfect.”

“I can’t remember every moment of every day,” Higgins said. “I’m doing my best here. And I know what happened during that day. I’m not exactly sure in which sequence of events those four things happened.”

Whybrow is now questioning her about where she found a box of Roses chocolates she told the court she ate after the alleged rape when she woke up on the Saturday morning.

Higgins said she is not sure exactly where she found the box of chocolates.

Whybrow: “Is this another example like the sequencing in your evidence yesterday about the anxiety attack where you’re not necessarily giving evidence in a sequence?”

Higgins: “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

Updated at 20.12 EST

Journalist Lisa Wilkinson, who is being sued alongside Network Ten by Bruce Lehrmann, is also present at court today:

Lisa Wilkinson (centre) arrives at the federal court of Australia in Sydney with her legal team. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Updated at 19.48 EST

Higgins grilled about sequence of events on day she had a panic attack at parliament

Brittany Higgins has become tearful while under cross-examination about the sequence of events on a day she had a panic attack and locked herself in a bathroom at Parliament House.

“I don’t know, the rape?” Higgins said when asked why she had a panic attack. “Being in the company of people that I used to work with when I was happy? I don’t, I don’t know. I can’t tell you what triggered it. But it was a hard day. I don’t know why.”

Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC has questioned whether she has got her facts straight about the sequence of events on that day.

Whybrow has shown her a record of text messages which appear to contradict her version of events that day.

Updated at 19.47 EST

Bruce Lehrmann is present in court today watching Brittany Higgins’ cross-examination.

Here he is arriving at court today:

Bruce Lehrmann (right) arrives at the federal court of Australia in Sydney. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Higgins questioned about duration of her panic attack

Brittany Higgins has admitted under cross-examination that she was “wrong about some significant matters” in the criminal proceedings against Bruce Lehrmann last year.

In answer to a question from Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC about getting some facts wrong, Higgins said: “I accept that. Absolutely.”

Higgins is being questioned about when she had a panic attack.

“I had a panic attack,” Higgins said. “And I missed the beginning of Steve Ciobo’s valedictory [speech]. “I acknowledged during the start of that day, I had lunch with Ben Dillaway and at one point in that day, I had drinks with Steve Ciobo and some of his staff in his new office.”

Higgins accepted that her saying she had been locked in a bathroom having a panic attack at Parliament House for three hours was incorrect.

Higgins said it was not three hours but it felt like a long time.

Updated at 20.13 EST

Higgins concedes in cross-examination her criminal trial evidence was ‘not always correct’

Steve Whybrow SC begins by asking Higgins how long she spent with Ten’s legal team preparing for her evidence.

Higgins said she had four meetings with Ten over two months and had to go over her text messages.

Whybrow, who also cross-examined her at the criminal trial, has asked Brittany Higgins if she told the truth at the criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann for sexual assault.

“I thought I was telling the truth, Higgins said. “I was just not always correct. But I was always doing my best.”

Higgins agreed she gave a statutory declaration to Channel 10 ahead of The Project interview going to air.

Higgins agreed she said in the statutory declaration in 2021 that she said a bruise on her leg which she took a photograph of was caused by the sexual assault.

Whybrow asked her why she gave a different answer yesterday when she was asked by Matt Collins KC what the bruise was from and she said it may have been from the sexual assault or from falling on the night in March when she was so drunk.

“I thought it could have been either the assault or tripping up the stairs,” Higgins said.

Updated at 19.31 EST

Higgins says she was relieved when she heard Lehrmann was going to deny all sexual contact with her

Brittany Higgins resigned from Cash’s office in July 2021. She went to see the Australian federal police again with her partner David Sharaz and reactivated her complaint. She gave a record of interview to the AFP and told the police she was going to be speaking to the media.

The court heard that Higgins found out from news.com.au journalist Samantha Maiden that Bruce Lehrmann was going to deny all sexual contact with her.

Higgins said she was relieved to hear it because she was afraid Lehrmann would claim it was consensual sex.

“I was really relieved,” Higgins said. “I thought that like we were going to have this very nuanced debate about consent and alcohol and all this kind of stuff. And I was really shocked and kind of happy at the time that he was saying that nothing had happened. Because to my mind, it was so preposterous.”

Higgins’ examination by Ten’s defence counsel Matt Collins KC is over and her cross-examination by Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC has begun.

Brittany Higgins (centre) arrives at the federal court on Thursday. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Updated at 22.00 EST

Higgins says Michaelia Cash assured her she would make media inquiry about sexual assault ‘go away’

Brittany Higgins has told the court when she worked for Senator Michaelia Cash in October 2019 she was told there had been a media inquiry about a sexual assault in Linda Reynolds’ office.

Higgins said one of Cash’s staffers told her there had been “a media inquiry about an alleged sexual assault that occurred in Senator Reynolds’ office in March 22 of 2019”.

The ministerial suite that was Senator Linda Reynolds’ office, tendered in evidence in court. Photograph: Federal court of Australia

Higgins said she was immediately upset and met with staff from Cash and Reynolds’ office to discuss how to handle the media inquiry.

Higgins told the court she then met with the minister herself and Cash assured her “she would make the media inquiry go away”.

“Immediately, Michaelia Cash embraced me and gave me a hug,” Higgins said.

“I don’t specifically remember what she said … she was just reassuring me … [and] said words to the effect that everything would be OK.”

The court was played a voicemail message from Cash which assured Higgins that everything would be OK.

Updated at 19.18 EST

This blog will cover major developments during the day.

In the interests of open justice and due to significant public interest, the federal court is livestreaming this case.

You can follow the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial live stream on YouTube here.

Brittany Higgins returns to witness stand for second full day

Brittany Higgins will return to the witness box for her second full day of evidence this morning after a day which saw her recount in graphic detail her alleged rape by Bruce Lehrmann.

Lehrmann has brought a defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over an interview with Higgins on Ten’s The Project in which she alleged she was raped by a Liberal staffer in Parliament House. Network Ten and Wilkinson are defending the case.

Higgins told the federal court she was sexually assaulted in March 2019 in Parliament House, and her relationship with her employer Senator Linda Reynolds deteriorated after she reported the incident.

Higgins was “really personally hurt” by the way Reynolds and the Liberal party “abandoned” her after she disclosed the incident.

Lehrmann has denied raping Higgins and pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent. His criminal trial was abandoned due to juror misconduct and the second did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health.

Updated at 18.15 EST