Linda Reynolds v Brittany Higgins defamation trial LIVE - day three

Linda Reynolds paid Brittany Higgins $10,000 over the 'lying cow' comment, along with a further $11,000 to cover her legal costs.

Ms Reynolds was in the throes of anger when she Ms Higgins a 'lying cow' as she watched The Project in February 2021.

She told the court on Tuesday that she did not recall saying those words, but did not deny it because it matched her emotions at the time.

The comment was leaked from her office by one of her staffers.

Weeks later, Ms Reynolds received a legal letter from defamation lawyer Rebekah Giles on behalf of Ms Higgins.

On Tuesday, Ms Reynolds told the court the matter was resolved quickly.

She agreed to pay Ms Higgins $10,000 for damages, and agreed to pay Ms Giles a further $11,000 to cover her fees.

Ms Higgins instructed Ms Reynolds to donate the money to the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre.

Ms Giles represented Taylor Auerbach during Bruce Lehrmann's defamation case in the Federal Court last year. She charges $750-per-hour.

In the settlement deed, Ms Higgins and Ms Reynolds signed a non-disparagement clause.

Linda Reynolds told the court she felt threatened by Brittany Higgins' now-husband David Sharaz when he wrote allegedly defamatory posts about her online.

Mr Sharaz uploaded a number of posts about Ms Reynolds between 2022 and 2023, which the senator said 'creeped me out' because she felt as though she was being stalked.

Specifically, she referred to a 2022 post where Mr Sharaz had posted a screenshot of a press release on the senator's website titled 'Empowering Women'.

In the post, he wrote: 'I see you Linda.'

In court on Tuesday, Ms Reynolds said 'it was creepy, it was threatening.'

'When someone says that - I see you, Linda - apart from the stalky nature of the comment on these posts, saying something like that is awful and I was upset and a bit creeped out.'

'It's a subtle reminder - I'm watching you, and it was based on the lies they'd been propagating for some time.'

The 'lies' she referred to was claims by Ms Higgins that Ms Reynolds did not support her in the wake of her rape allegations in 2019, and forced the former staffer to choose between her job and her rape complaint.

Ms Reynolds' lawyer then took the court's attention to another post by Mr Sharaz, written in response to a troll comment on X, which said the senator was 'a monster who deserves to be in jail'.

Sharaz responded: 'Thanks for reminding her. I hope she hears this every day until she dies.'

On Tuesday, Ms Reynolds told the court she initially read his comment as a death threat and had to go back and re-read it to work out that it wasn't.

'This was probably the creepiest thing, and I took it as a death threat, but he's clearly reminding everyone what they alleged about me, and he wants me to suffer for the rest of my life.'

Linda Reynolds told the court she had wanted Brittany Higgins to file her $2.4million claim, with all the allegations against her, in court - but it never happened.

Ms Reynolds knew that Ms Higgins planned to launch a lawsuit against the government over the way she handled the rape claims in 2019, and agreed that the normal one-year limitation period should be extended.

She agreed to extend the period due to the criminal case against Bruce Lehrmann in the ACT in 2022.

Ms Reynolds had a lawyer and told the government that she planned to fight the allegations against her.

She had wanted Ms Higgins to lodge her complaint in court.

'I felt it was important because if we were going to be mediating the matter, then I have the right to see what was claimed against me and what was the subject of mediation,' she said.

'I wanted Ms Higgins to file the charges against me in court because, at that point, it was shadow boxing.'

Mr Bennett said he was about to embark on a complex line of questioning and suggested the court adjourn for the day.

Court will resume at 10.30am local time, 12.30pm AEST.

Ms Reynolds' evidence-in-chief will end before the lunch break. She will then be cross-examined by Ms Higgins' barrister Rachael Young SC.

Linda Reynolds' lawyers will subpoena Saxon Mullins, David Sharaz, Brittany Higgins and her best friend Emma Webster her lawyer Carmel Galati over a fundraiser.

Ms Mullins, a sexual assault advocate, created the fundraiser on the platform 'Chuffed' to cover Ms Higgins' legal fees in the defamation proceedings.

According to the fundraising campaign, the funds would not go to Ms Reynolds if she won the defamation case - it would be kept by her Perth lawyers and protected from litigation.

At the end of the hearing on Tuesday, Mr Bennett told the court that he would like to know if Ms Higgins requested the fundraiser.

He also wanted to know whether Ms Higgins sought the fundraiser as a way of continuing the narrative that her rape claims were still being challenged.

The fundraiser refers to Federal Court Justice Lee's ruling in April when he found on a civil scale that Ms Higgins was raped by Bruce Lehrmann in Ms Reynolds office in 2019.

Mr Bennett said the findings were not challenged in the current defamation case - this case is about whether Ms Reynolds supported Ms Higgins in the wake of her rape.

The fundraiser read: 'Many hoped the judgement would mark the end of this legal saga, and Brittany would be free to move on and heal in private.'

'However, Brittany is now being sued for defamation by a former boss, over three social media postings made by her in mid-2023.'

He said there was nothing in the fundraiser that said the current court proceedings were about how the rape was handled, rather than challenging the truthfulness of the rape itself.

Linda Reynolds was telling the court about how humiliating it was to have a breakdown during Question Time following a public interrogation over the way she handled Brittany Higgins' rape claims.

Her vision was blurry, she couldn't read words on a page, her heart condition worsened and, eventually, her knees buckled and she had to leave the Senate.

Ms Reynolds recalled crying uncontrollably and being consoled by one of her peers.

Then-prime minister Scott Morrison entered the room, ushered everyone else out, and comforted her.

'Scott was incredibly compassionate,' she said.

'He was sharing with me how difficult it was for being, being accused of covering up a rape, and the difficulty it was causing for his girls.

'Over that conversation, my heart pain started to settle and I eventually stopped crying and my staff were waiting to take me back.

She then was shown a media story about her public breakdown, and described it to the court as 'embarrassing'.

'The dirty little secret in Parliament House is we're all human,' she said.

Ms Reynolds went on to detail her physical and mental health struggles in the weeks following Ms Higgins' claims against her.

She was eventually hospitalised, on the advice of Greg Hunt and Scott Morrison's personal doctor, and was diagnosed with microvascular ischaemic heart disease - when the heart is starved of oxygen.

The senator then took sick leave for three weeks, and was heavily criticised for it.

Linda Reynolds recalled a conversation with the late Kimberley Kitching, who was a Labor senator, in 2021.

Ms Reynolds told the court that Ms Kitching approached her after morning prayers in Parliament House and said she was sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Ms Kitching said Labor found out about the rape that occurred in Ms Reynolds' office and they were going to 'rain down hell' on her.

Ms Reynolds' lawyer Martin Bennett asked if Ms Kitching had said 'rain down hell', and she said that was accurate.

'I was completely incredulous,' Ms Reynolds recalled.

'I said to her, "why would anyone weaponise such an incident?" and I still can't find the words to describe it,' she told the court.

'Even for Labor, they've pulled some pretty nasty stunts, but this...I found it hard to believe.'

Ms Kitching told Ms Reynolds that she found out about the rape via an anonymous email that was sent directly to her.

The email outlined the rape, but did not mention Ms Higgins' name. Ms Kitching gave the letter to the Australian Federal Police.

Ms Kitching told Ms Reynolds that, when Labor found out about the rape, Penny Wong (pictured above) in particular was 'angry' because she had given the letter to the AFP rather than to her.

'Penny Wong said something to the impact of, "Labor could have weaponised it",' Ms Reynolds told the court.

She said Ms Kitching was angry and upset over the situation.

Ms Reynolds said she went back to her office and organised a meeting with the prime minister's office.

At that time, she had no idea that Ms Higgins planned on going to the media about her rape.

The court adjourned briefly while Ms Reynolds collected herself.

'This is an emotional point, given that it led to Kimberley Kitching's death,' she said before the break.

Ms Kitching (pictured below) had a fatal heart attack on March 10, 2022. She was 52.

Linda Reynolds watched Brittany Higgins' interview on The Project in her ministerial suite, and felt so enraged that she called the former staffer a 'lying cow'.

After lunch on Tuesday, Ms Reynolds told the court she had no recollection of exactly what she said during the broadcast on February 15, 2021.

'I have no recollection of the words I used but I know I was very angry and frustrated by the lies, and what I knew to be lies,' she said.

Two days later, her chief-of-staff approached her and said a staff member had made a complaint about Ms Reynolds' comments during the broadcast.

'I didn't have a specific recollection of saying those exact words, but they certainly characterised how I was feeling and my anger and hurt, I completely accepted those were the actual words I used,' she said.

She had a meeting with all her staff and apologised for causing offence.

Earlier, Ms Reynolds told the court she disagreed with a number of claims Ms Higgins made in her interview with news.com.au and to Lisa Wilkinson in her interview on The Project.

Ms Higgins told Wilkinson that Ms Reynolds 'had to have known' the rape took place on a couch in her office - but Ms Reynolds has continually said she did not know.

She has also repeatedly disagreed with Ms Higgins' assertions that she was not supported following her rape.

Ms Reynolds was grilled during Question Time, but decided the rape matter was criminal and should not be prosecuted in Parliament House.

'There are no words to describe what it was like being accused of covering up the rape of a young woman in my office in a way that I knew was not true,' she told the court.

'I found it almost impossible to process mentally and all of a sudden, in a few days, days I had gone from a senator and minister doing her job, and doing I well, to being nationally vilified as someone who would do something so despicable.'

She said her peers looked at her differently, some distanced themselves from her because they wondered if she had actually tried to cover up the rape.

'I said time and time again, this is not a matter to be prosecuted in Parliament - it was a criminal matter and it was Brittany's agency to tell the story,' she said.

Ms Reynolds said she didn't necessarily agree with what Ms Higgins had said about herself and Fiona Brown, but she had taken the view that she should not comment on the situation.

'Not being able to defend myself, because that's the decision that was taken, was devastating,' she said.

At that point, Ms Reynolds' voice cracked, she teared up and a court officer refilled her water glass.

Linda Reynolds felt sorry for Brittany Higgins once she read the original news.com.au article detailing the rape allegations on February 15, 2021.

Ms Reynolds told the court that she was struck by how differently she and Ms Higgins recalled the period of time after the assault.

'I felt sick,' she said, recalling the moment she read the article for the first time.

'Even just saying she felt forced to choose between police or keeping her job, that was simply not true, and it went downhill from there.'

Ms Reynolds said she did not know Ms Higgins had a rape complaint when she had her initial meeting with her in the days after the assault.

'She hadn't told me that she was sexually assaulted so there was no suggestion of a crime at that point,' she told the court.

'I started feeling sorry for her because [the article said she had been] internalising the trauma for two years, and as upset as I was going through it, I started feeling sorry for her because I was thinking, "what did we miss?".'

Ms Reynolds was asked to go through the article, pulling out parts that were incorrect.

In the article, Ms Higgins claimed Ms Reynolds had said to her: 'As a woman, this is something we go through.'

Ms Reynolds told the court: 'I would never, ever say those words and I did not say those words. They are abhorrent.'

Ms Reynolds agreed that Ms Higgins was given a choice to return home to the Gold Coast and work remotely, but denied that she said 'we need to know now'.

The senator also agreed that she told Ms Higgins that she would not return to Canberra, if she chose to go back to the Gold Coast.

Ms Reynolds told the court: 'I was angry at Brittany, but also at myself and just wondering how we had got it so wrong and I started thinking back to what cues we missed.'

'We didn't just get it a little wrong, she was saying we got it completely wrong because her recollections were completely different from mine.'

Ms Reynolds said she had no reason to doubt Ms Higgins' memories of her assault, but 'everything else she said I knew wasn't true - but what had I missed for her to now think that it was all true?'

She said Ms Higgins 'could not have picked a worse issue to bring me down'.

'It is such an abhorrent thing to say to any woman that you've mistreated their rape allegations, and you've not only done that, but you've covered it up.'

Court will resume at 2.15pm local time, 4.15pm AEST.

Linda Reynolds' lawyer Martin Bennet told the court he would issue a subpoena to a sexual assault advocate who set up a fundraiser for Brittany Higgins.

The fundraiser was launched less than two years after she got $2.4million in compensation for the way her rape allegations were handled by her Parliament House bosses, including Ms Reynolds.

The campaign, set up Saxon Mullins, says the funds will be held in a trust by her Perth lawyers and will not be directly accessible by Ms Higgins or her husband David Sharaz.

As of 11am on Tuesday, Perth time, the campaign had raised more than $23,000.

According to the fundraiser, which is called #standwithbrittanyhiggins, the money would be inaccessible to Linda Reynolds if she won her defamation case.

In the WA Supreme Court on Tuesday, Mr Bennett told the court he had subpoenaed all communication between Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz, her solicitor Carmel Galati, best friend Emma Webster, and Ms Mullins.

He also told the court that Ms Reynolds' statement of claim had been amended to include a social media post Ms Higgins uploaded on Monday, during his client's evidence.

The post was a screenshot of a book she contributed to, called 'How Many More Women' by Jennifer Robinson and Keina Yoshida.

The book is about laws around the world that silence female victims.

Ms Higgins' rape story was included in the book, but was redacted in the original version due to forthcoming court proceedings.

The book is now being republished with Ms Higgins' story included.

She captioned the post: 'Pertinent reading.'

On Tuesday morning, Mr Bennett said the post was 'an attempt to mischaracterize the nature of these proceedings'.

He said the current defamation action had nothing to do with her ability to speak about her sexual assault.

Brittany Higgins was invited to Linda Reynolds' home in Perth after the LNP won the 2019 election.

Ms Reynolds told the court she invited a few members of her team to her house the day after the election to continue the celebration.

They had a barbecue and provided champagne, before flying back to Canberra.

After that, Ms Reynolds offered to renew Ms Higgins' contract as a junior media advisor.

However, Ms Higgins declined the offer because she had three other offers - including a position with Senator Michaelia Cash who wanted to give her a higher-ranking position.

Ms Higgins then sent Ms Reynolds flowers, and accepted the role with Ms Cash.

(Pictured below: Ms Reynolds' staffers inside her home in Perth, the day after the election. Brittany Higgins is sitting at the back, underneath a painting)

Linda Reynolds told the court Brittany Higgins was busy campaigning with the rest of the team during the federal election campaign in 2019.

Ms Higgins went to Perth for the election campaign in April 2019 - weeks after her rape in Parliament House.

In her $2.4million settlement claim with the Commonwealth, she argued that she was required to mostly work in her own hotel room during the campaign - seven days a week for six weeks.

However, a number of diary entries and photos tendered to the court on Tuesday showed Ms Higgins had a busy schedule campaigning with the rest of the team.

'Ms Higgins was allocated for a period of time at the beginning of the campaign, on a number of days ... going to events, and she did a great job,' Ms Reynolds told the court.

She said election campaigns are busy and all staff members are utilised, including Ms Higgins.

The court was shown photos of Ms Higgins smiling at rallies, and standing next to then-prime minister Scott Morrison.

(Pictured below: Brittany Higgins, far left, at a Liberal rally with Scott Morrison in Perth in 2019)