The 29-year-old went public with her rape allegation and claimed it had been the subject of a political cover-up on February 15, 2021 in interviews with journalist Samantha Maiden and The Project.
Lehrmann denies the claim and his 2022 criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct. He is appealing a Federal Court judgment that found the rape allegation to be true on the balance of probabilities.
Reynolds has been pursuing Higgins for the past year over a series of social media posts she claims accused her of mishandling the rape allegation and attempting to silence victims of sexual assault.
Higgins is defending the claim on the basis the substance of the posts is true, and that Reynolds is using the media to harass her.
On Friday, Tasmanian Senator Wendy Askew also took the stand to tell of the toll the political furore over Higgins’ alleged rape had on Reynolds over the past three years, recalling periods of absence and “great distress”.
Liberal Senator Wendy Askew is sworn in at Parliament House in Canberra in 2019.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Askew told the court she sat behind Reynolds in parliamentary chambers in February 2021 when the former defence minister began fielding questions from the Labor Party about the handling of the alleged incident.
“I was very conscious of the questions being asked relentlessly of her, and especially the mannerisms across the chamber … which were just heartless,” Askew told the court.
After several days of intense questioning from both members of parliament and the media, Reynolds reported feeling her vision blur, legs buckle and her heart pounding before almost collapsing in the senate.
Askew told the court she recalled observing Reynolds struggling to speak and fleeing the chamber before she was taken to hospital, the day before she cancelled a highly anticipated speech at the National Press Club.
As the opposition’s chief whip, Askew said she had since regularly received leave requests for Reynolds often coinciding with media coverage of the saga.
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“She often comes to me and says ‘I just can’t do it … I just can’t get through the day,’” she said.
But when grilled by Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young, SC, Askew acknowledged less than half of the 49 leaves of absence were lodged in 2021, and just over half a dozen were for medical or personal leave in 2022 and 2023.
Askew pointed out parliament was not sitting on July 4 or July 20, 2023, when Higgins’ social media posts were published.
The senator is the latest to testify to the impact of the political fallout on Reynolds, with others including former prime minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday.
Lawyers for Reynolds’ former chief of staff Fiona Brown are expected to front court on Friday afternoon following concerns she may not be fit to appear.
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