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 the Prime Minister's Principal Private Secretary, would not be contacting someone in the position of Ms Higgins simply to assess whether she was coping well. Mr Finkelstein, no doubt, was anxious not to alienate her and would have been forming his own assessment as to whether Ms Higgins was likely to change her mind. Whatever Ms Higgins may or may not have "felt" while in Perth, there is no evidence that anyone was suggesting to her to not proceed to act in a way contrary to her own settled, informed and communicated judgment as to what was best for her (let alone pressuring or threatening her to do so). She was not being "forced" to do anything as that concept is properly understood. To the extent one can understand what "checking up" entailed, it is a not an intervention that could be relied upon as amounting to the serious wrongdoing of obstructing Ms Higgins pursuing a complaint of sexual assault.

I.6CCTV Footage

733 As I have noted above, Ms Higgins said to Ms Maiden (and, as I will later explain, in her initial Project interview) that Ms Brown had said that she had viewed the CCTV footage taken from Parliament House cameras that showed Ms Higgins to be inebriated and repeatedly rebuffed requests for Ms Higgins to see the footage.

734 But Ms Brown did not see the CCTV footage and Ms Higgins' representations in this regard are again false. In particular, Ms Brown was unaware in 2019 of there being any "issue" as to the AFP accessing the CCTV footage, prior to the allegations in media reports in 2021 and had never seen CCTV footage of Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann entering or leaving the Parliament or the Ministerial Suite; nor had she taken any steps to procure it for viewing (although she probably did sensibly raise securing the CCTV footage as a result of the security breach with Mr Payne) (Brown (at [156]–[157]); T2136.21–34; T2141.26–29).

735 Having said this, I accept that Ms Higgins wished to see this CCTV footage, and this was a point Ms Higgins repeatedly made to both Ms Maiden and the Project team. This was connected, however, to the distinct notion that her failure to gain access to the footage, or the apparent "delay" in the AFP being able to view it (which amounted to no more than a fortnight since Ms Higgins made her initial complaint to the AFP) was somehow suspicious, or indicative of a cover-up, or demonstrated a "roadblock".

736 Three points should be made about this. Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369