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 254 Although some unspecified material may have been lost through a faulty transfer between devices, the weight of the evidence requires the conclusion that it is more likely than not that she curated data because she thought deleting some material assisted in her maintaining the cogency of her 2021 account. This went well beyond any concern about being seen in a photograph taken after someone had apparently placed a "MAGA hat" on her head.

2021 False Accusations

255 Finally, there is an example of an untruth about what, in the overall scheme of things, might be thought inconsequential, but which is revealing.

256 Ms Higgins asserted that Nick, her Bumble date, left The Dock because he "was bullied mercilessly by everyone at the event, um, they were all poking fun at him and laughing at him. And he pretty quickly was sort of driven out of the event" (T940.15–19). But what the CCTV footage irrefragably proves is that no-one did anything that could be remotely described as bullying Nick. Ms Higgins abandoned her date as she preferred to go and sit at the same table as Mr Lehrmann (Ex R42 / Ex 17A (at 20:51:38)). Ms Higgins, after being taken to the video, had to accept (albeit in what, at the time, struck me as a curiously light-hearted tone) that "I did ignore my date, and I was really rude" (T944.3).

257 Although on one level minor in itself, this untrue representation is one example of a willingness to make an accusation cut out of whole cloth because it suited Ms Higgins to make it. I will come to other examples below, including a substantively more important one relating to Mr Payne recounted to Ms Maiden.

VIConclusion on General Credit

258 When closely analysed, Ms Higgins' out-of-court representations in 2019 are of a different character than those out-of-court representations from 2021 and in court thereafter. Any inconsistent or untrue representations in 2019 are not inconsistent with the conduct of a genuine victim of sexual assault struggling to process what happened, seeking to cope, and working through her options. But whatever the truth of the evidence she gave as to what occurred in the Ministerial Suite one night in 2019, the cogency of her evidence as to this central aspect of the case must be evaluated and closely scrutinised in the light of the fact that my findings establish that has since 2021, Ms Higgins: Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369