526 The events upon which most emphasis was placed were some exchanges between Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins immediately in the days following the incident, which commenced by Mr Lehrmann emailing Ms Higgins eight hours after leaving Parliament House by forwarding a news summary with the following message (Ex 20):
Might see about getting you on this list! :)
527 Ms Higgins did not read this message until Monday, 25 March (T638), and also on that day, at 7:34am, Mr Lehrmann forwarded Ms Higgins another news summary with the following message (Ex 21):
Not letting me send to private email! Will email David and get your gmail on the mail list!
BL
528 Ms Higgins responded at 1:15pm in the following terms (Ex 21):
So weird!
Honestly, that would be the best if you could.
529 That morning, Mr Lehrmann purchased Ms Higgins an unsolicited cup of coffee, left it on her desk, said it was for her and then kept walking (T325.30–43); notably Mr Lehrmann did not seek to repeat the suggestion he “went out” for a coffee with Ms Higgins (as he had told the Spotlight programme (T327.12–13)).
530 The next day, at 10:28am, Ms Higgins sent the “phoning a friend” email to Mr Lehrmann asking for some help with a task in preparing some “portfolio stats” to “generate some [talking points]” to put into a campaign “prep pack” (Ex 22).
531 With regard to how she felt around this time, Ms Higgins gave evidence that she was worried that Mr Lehrmann may have “gone around and told [people] we had had consensual sex”, but that his normalising the situation (for example, by sending the emails) made her feel “weirdly relieved” because “it’s my word against him, trying to verify that it was rape and that there was no consent” and she was not in a position to deal with having a fight about whether or not it had been consensual right at that moment (T639.28–44).
532 At best, I agree with the respondents that this evidence is essentially neutral. The evidence is consistent with a rape not having occurred, but on the assumption Ms Higgins was a victim, this reaction does not offend commonsense. I have already explained why it was unnecessary for me to accept opinion evidence explaining the danger of making assumptions as to the
