reassured, however, when Major Irvine later fairly agreed with the proposition that her recollection of "general details as to whether you had bought drinks for people and they were all gin and tonics, or vodka, lime and soda or whether you asked for rounds, or things like that" was potentially affected by the alcohol that she had consumed on the night and the passage of time (T1193.15–24).
290 Secondly, when asked in chief about declining Ms Gain's invitation to kick on to 88mph, she responded by saying not only did she not want to mix work and pleasure by going to a club with people with whom she worked (which is entirely understandable), but also that she did not want to socialise or spend time with Mr Lehrmann because he had "bad vibes", which she put down to "women's intuition" (T1178.43–1179.3; T1196.4–15).
291 At first blush, this speculation might be thought to be a tell-tale of someone seeking to poison the well against a party whose interests they were seeking to damage, or be reflective of some hostility. But what is evident upon close examination of the contemporaneous documentary material is that her general wariness of Mr Lehrmann is supported by her Telegram exchange with Ms Gain the following day (at 2:07pm) in which she explained, albeit Delphically: "Bruce is in a bit of trouble in our office [at the moment] so I tried to keep distance" (Ex R59).
292 Moreover, there was one aspect of her evidence that was of importance, and which struck me as being a truthful recounting by Major Irvine of a genuine recollection. After noting Ms Higgins was "very down" on the Wednesday or Thursday after the incident, Major Irvine walked with Ms Higgins and had the following conversation with her (T1180.41–46):
I said, "Are you okay". She said no. I – she said, "No, have you heard what has happened"? I said no. She said, "On the weekend, … Bruce, Austin, Lauren and I went to 88. Bruce and I were in a[n] Uber to go home and he wanted to come back to Parliament House. He had some whisky to show me or something. When we came back to Parliament House, I fell asleep on the couch and I woke up and he was on top of me".
293 Ms Higgins did not use the word rape or assault expressly, but Major Irvine went on (T1180.46–1181.22):
And I said, okay, was it – and I paused. And she said, "Yes, definitely". And I took that to mean it was an assault. I asked if she had spoken to the Minister or Fiona Brown about it yet. At that stage, she had spoken to Fiona but had not yet spoken to the Minister. I am confident that police were mentioned in that interview – in that meeting – sorry, that conversation with her. I'm confident that she had either booked to see into the police or was going to book in to see the police.
