A rape happened in Australia’s Parliament, choose finds after three years | EUROtoday

In 2021, former political staffer Brittany Higgins got here ahead in media interviews, alleging that about two years earlier she had been raped by a colleague inside Australia’s Parliament House, on a sofa within the workplace of their mutual boss Linda Reynolds, a high-ranking lawmaker.

This week, a federal choose dominated that she was telling the reality. The discovering concluded an at-times salacious trial that gripped the nation and its media — together with the accusation that one outlet, Seven Network, paid for medication and intercourse work companies to safe an interview with the person accused of rape, Bruce Lehrmann. The community has denied these claims.

The ruling Monday was in a defamation swimsuit introduced by Lehrmann in opposition to a journalist, Lisa Wilkinson, and the tv channel, Network 10, that had aired Higgins’s story. Lehrmann continues to disclaim the allegation.

Wilkinson instructed reporters outdoors the court docket: “I feel glad for the women of Australia today.” She and Network 10 had relied on a reality protection, which means they might not have defamed Lehrmann if the court docket concluded their story was right.

Higgins’s allegation was central to Australia’s #MeToo second, with outrage laser-focused on goings-on at Parliament. In 2021, the nation’s lawyer normal was additionally accused of rape — claims he denied — and a evaluate discovered that about half of Parliament staff surveyed had been bullied, sexually harassed or sexually assaulted in a piece context.

Both Lehrmann and Higgins grew to become family names “for reasons neither of them would wish to be,” mentioned Rachael Burgin, chief govt of Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy, an Australian nonprofit group.

She mentioned she hoped Monday’s “momentous” choice would “bring an end to the ongoing pain, trauma and mud-sledging of the victim in this case,” referring to press and social media scrutiny of Higgins.

“She has absolutely changed Australia for the better,” Burgin added. “She stood tall.”

A legal trial charging Lehrmann with committing sexual activity with out consent — to which he pleaded not responsible — was deserted in December 2022 due to juror misconduct. It was not reopened with a brand new jury out of concern for Higgins’s well being.

In his ruling Monday, Justice Michael Lee mentioned of the choice to sue for defamation that, “having escaped the lions’ den, Mr. Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat.”

“He has now been found, by the civil standard of proof, to have engaged in a great wrong,” he mentioned, although he emphasised that Lehrmann had not been convicted of against the law.

The trial supplied a stream of media fodder Down Under.

Caught up in it was the Seven Network tv channel, which had broadcast unique interviews with Lehrmann in 2023. A former producer testified that Lehrmann obtained perks from the community together with reimbursement for cocaine and companies from intercourse employees — which Seven denies. Lehrmann testified that he obtained a yr’s lease value about $65,000 from the channel, public broadcaster ABC reported.

Lee didn’t rule on the veracity of the producer’s claims, which he thought have been tangential to the central authorized query.

Seven and Lehrmann’s attorneys didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Peter Bartlett, a defamation regulation professional who efficiently represented a media outlet in one other latest headline-grabbing trial, mentioned the ruling in opposition to Lehrmann may “be a boost for freedom of speech in Australia,” which isn’t constitutionally protected there.

In Australia, editors and in-house legal professionals are usually extra conservative than within the United States when deciding what to publish, Bartlett mentioned. Under Australian regulation, somebody sued for defamation normally should show {that a} declare was true — reasonably than the aggrieved occasion proving it was false — besides in restricted protected contexts.

Bartlett defended Fairfax Media when it was sued by a embellished soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, over tales that alleged he had illegally killed unarmed prisoners in Afghanistan. In June, the choose in that case additionally discovered the tales have been considerably true.

“In the two most recent high-profile decisions in Australia, Roberts-Smith and Lehrmann, the plaintiffs have both failed,” Bartlett mentioned, calling it a “very rare” interval within the Australian defamation world. In each instances, “the trials have been far more damaging than the original publication,” he added.

Higgins’s allegation additionally grew to become a political subject. She and Lehrmann have been each employed by the Liberal Party — which heads Australia’s conservative coalition, in authorities on the time — when the rape occurred. In 2022, Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a public apology to Higgins for “the terrible things that took place” in Parliament.

Burgin mentioned that the query of what occurred within the early hours of March 23, 2019, in Reynolds’s workplace has been “omnipresent” in Australia, the topic of “arguments around the dinner table, disagreements among friends.”

“It was treated like a soap opera, where new characters were dragged in every moment,” she mentioned. “Unfortunately, these characters — these are real people.”