When a younger former authorities worker mentioned on nationwide tv in 2021 that she had been sexually assaulted in Australia’s Parliament two years earlier, it shocked the nation and unleashed a wave of anger aimed on the nation’s insular, male-dominated political institution.
The worker, Brittany Higgins, accused her colleague Bruce Lehrmann of raping her when she was inebriated, and mentioned that she felt strain from the federal government on the time to not report the assault. She grew to become a figurehead for a looking on girls’s rights that finally contributed to the electoral ousting of Australia’s conservative nationwide authorities. However for years, there was no authorized conclusion to the case.
On Monday, it was lastly — considerably — settled, in a roundabout approach.
Mr. Lehrmann misplaced a civil defamation swimsuit that he had filed in opposition to the tv station that first broadcast Ms. Higgins’s account, with the decide ruling that based mostly on the accessible proof, it was extra seemingly than not that Mr. Lehrmann had raped her.
The proceedings didn’t happen in a prison courtroom, and the offense didn’t must be confirmed past an inexpensive doubt. As an alternative, the usual of proof was a stability of chances — a authorized time period that means whether or not one thing is extra seemingly than to not have occurred.
Nonetheless, for a lot of, this was a long-awaited validation for Ms. Higgins.
“One thing resembling justice has been accomplished,” mentioned Sarah Maddison, a political science professor on the College of Melbourne.
Justice Michael Lee of the Australian Federal Courtroom in Sydney decided on Monday that it was extra seemingly than not that Ms. Higgins had been inebriated, unaware of her environment, and mendacity nonetheless “like a log” whereas Mr. Lehrmann assaulted her. The decide discovered that Mr. Lehrmann had been “hellbent” on having intercourse together with her, disregarding whether or not she had the capability to consent.
“In his pursuit of gratification, he didn’t care a technique or one other whether or not Ms. Higgins understood or agreed to what was occurring,” Justice Lee mentioned in his ruling.
The decide added that though he believed Ms. Higgins had overstated the extent to which the federal government had tried to cowl up the incident, her account of the assault itself was plausible. The decide additionally mentioned that nothing Mr. Lehrmann had mentioned needs to be accepted as truth with out corroboration from different sources.
Professor Maddison mentioned the case illustrated the considerations that many ladies have about the best way sexual assault allegations are handled by Australia’s justice system, together with the cruel scrutiny that accusers are sometimes subjected to.
In 2022, throughout a prison trial concerning the case, Ms. Higgins sat by way of days of intense cross-examination by protection attorneys who recommended that she didn’t truly bear in mind what had occurred, and who accused her of constructing up the accusation. She denied that repeatedly, generally defiantly and generally in tears.
That prison trial led to a mistrial after a juror went in opposition to the decide’s directions and introduced analysis on sexual assault circumstances into the jury room. However prosecutors determined in opposition to a retrial due to considerations about Ms. Higgins’s psychological well being.
Mr. Lehrmann then sued Community Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, the journalist who was the primary to interview Ms. Higgins on tv, for defamation.
“Having escaped the lions’ den, Mr. Lehrmann made the error of going again for his hat,” Justice Lee mentioned.
After Monday’s verdict, Ms. Wilkinson informed reporters: “I really feel glad for the ladies of Australia as we speak.” Mr. Lehrmann and Ms. Higgins didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark made by way of their attorneys.
Rachael Burgin, a senior lecturer in criminology on the Swinburne College of Know-how in Melbourne, mentioned the end result of the defamation trial, in a approach, was nonetheless unsatisfactory.
Mr. Lehrmann suffered few penalties, she mentioned, whereas Ms. Higgins “needed to undergo a hell of so much to get right here, and he or she doesn’t get so much out of it by way of justice.”
