Linda Reynolds v. Brittany Higgins defamation trial LIVE blog (2024)

Linda Reynolds' lawyer Martin Bennett has blown up in court about Brittany Higgins' Instagram post on Monday afternoon, during court proceedings.

Moments before court wrapped for the day, Mr Bennett said: 'While my client was giving evidence, Ms Higgins posted on social media.'

He said Ms Reynolds' statement of claim would be amended, again, to include 'aggravating' commentary.

'If Ms Higgins thinks she can provide a running commentary on my client, it's extraordinarily inappropriate,' he told the court.

'One would hope someone would advise Ms Higgins to give up commentary.'

Ms Higgins' lawyer Rachael Young SC said the post was a repost of a book that was published, rather than 'an express reference to today's proceeding'.

Mr Bennett said: 'It's the timing and the connection.'

Justice Tottle said he would deal with submissions when the time came.

Court will resume at 10.30am on Tuesday, local time (12.30pm AEST).

(Pictured below: Linda Reynolds with her lawyer, Martin Bennett, leaving outside court on Monday)

Linda Reynolds has told the court she caught Bruce Lehrmann lying about connections to ASIO.

Mr Lehrmann worked for Ms Reynolds when she was the minister for defence industry in 2019, but said she had reservations about his future in the ministerial wing due to certain incidents.

She told the court she had expressed concerns about him to her chief-of-staff, Fiona Brown.

'I had expressed concerns about Mr Lehrmann's behaviour and odd things he said,' she told the court.

'Some people boast about things or people they know or things they do, and it was things like that we had concerns about.'

Ms Reynolds told the court Lehrmann said he knew a senior ASIO figure, Duncan Lewis.

'It wasn't implausible ... but Fiona knows him so she contacted him directly and he had never heard of Bruce,' she said.

'So that was not true.'

(Pictured below: Bruce Lehrmann in June, 2024)

She then brought up the incident that led to his sacking after Brittany Higgins' assault in March 2019.

Lehrmann had left a 'highly secure, codeworded' document from another portfolio on his desk.

Ms Reynolds said the document had 'no business in his possession or in my office because we didn't have the storage facilities, and he left it on the desk'.

'It was highly classified and should never have been in my office,' she said.

She discussed it with Ms Brown and they decided he had 'no place in the defence portfolio or the ministerial wing'.

'We took action to refer him to the security vetting agency ... We didn't feel he was a fit and proper person for security clearance,' she told the court.

She later found out that Lehrmann and Ms Higgins had gone back to Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019, while drunk.

Ms Reynolds was angry that she wasn't told about the security breach for three days, and felt embarrassed that her staffers had decided to do that.

She maintains she did not know at the time that Ms Higgins was raped that night.

(Pictured below: Brittany Higgins entering Parliament House on the night of the assault in 2019)

Brittany Higgins uploaded an Instagram post on Monday afternoon, during Linda Reynolds' defamation case against her.

The post was a screenshot of a book she contributed to, called 'How Many More Women' by Jennifer Robinson and Keina Yoshida.

The book is about laws around the world that silence female victims.

Ms Higgins' rape story was included in the book, but was redacted in the original version due to forthcoming court proceedings.

The book is now being republished with Ms Higgins' story included.

She captioned the post: 'Pertinent reading.'

A fundraiser has been set up to cover Brittany Higgins' 'ongoing medical, counselling and legal costs' - less than two years after she got $2.4million in compensation.

The campaign was set up by sexual assault campaigner Saxon Mullins and will be held in a trust by her Perth lawyers and will not be directly accessible by Ms Higgins or her husband David Sharaz.

According to the fundraiser, which is called #standwithbrittanyhiggins, the money would be inaccessible to Linda Reynolds if she won her defamation case.

As of 5.30pm, Perth time, the campaign had raised more than $5000.

The campaign said: 'This fundraiser is to provide additional support for Brittany Higgins’ ongoing medical, counselling and legal costs.

'The money will be used for Brittany Higgins’ benefit for ongoing medical and counselling costs, and payment of any outstanding invoices for legal work performed for Ms Higgins.'

Last week it was revealed that Ms Higgins would have to sell her $600,000 home in France to cover her legal fees during the defamation action.

(Pictured below: The campaign, with Brittany Higgins, Bruce Lehrmann, and Bettina Arndt)

If she loses the case, Ms Higgins would also have to cover Ms Reynolds' legal fees. The cost of the case could run into the millions.

In April, Federal Court Justice Lee found, on a balance of probabilities, that Bruce Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.

The fundraiser read: 'Many hoped the judgement would mark the end of this legal saga, and Brittany would be free to move on and heal in private.'

'However, Brittany is now being sued for defamation by a former boss, over three social media postings made by her in mid-2023.'

The campaign also fired a shot at men's rights activist Bettina Arndt, who is holding a conference later in August called ‘Restoring the Presumption of Innocence'.

Lehrmann was set to speak at the conference until Justice Lee's ruling in April.

'One of the foreshadowed speeches [at the conference] is titled "The verdict goes to… the best actress",' the campaign read.

In December 2022, Ms Higgins launched legal action against the Commonwealth over the way her rape claims were handled by her Parliament House bosses in 2019.

After legal fees, she walked away with about $1.9million.

(Pictured, left to right, top to bottom: Sexual consent advocate Chanel Contos, Brittany Higgins, sexual assault survivor Grace Tame, assault activist Saxon Mullins)

Linda Reynolds said she held a meeting with Brittany Higgins in her office, on the couch where the former staffer was raped, because she did not know there was an assault.

She also told the court her office was the most private place in the ministerial suite, and it seemed like the logical choice.

By that time, Ms Higgins had told her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown, 'I remember him on top of me', but hadn't said she was sexually assaulted.

'At that time, there was no allegation of rape, there was no indication that when she said, "I remember him on top of me", that that situation had happened in my office,' Ms Reynolds recalled.

Ms Reynolds said she held meetings with Ms Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann in that office and 'there were no furtive glances at the couch'.

Lehrmann was sacked during his meeting because he had left confidential defence documents on his desk, unsecured, over the weekend.

However, the senator recalled being 'very impressed' with Ms Higgins because she took responsibility for the fact that she had entered the defence suite while drunk in the early hours of the morning.

She said Ms Higgins appeared very embarrassed - 'she was mortified,' the senator added - and wanted to continue working in the defence industry portfolio.

Ms Reynolds told Ms Higgins that her job was safe, but urged her to learn from the experience and told her, 'you can't do that again'.

'She said that she'd gone out, had too much to drink, come back with Bruce and things were hazy from there,' she said.

Ms Higgins said she remembered waking up, getting dressed and leaving the following morning - which jogged Ms Reynolds' memory that the young staffer had been found naked in the office.

The senator was concerned about Ms Higgins and told the court that she encouraged her 'not to let things fester' and that she would have support if she wanted to make a complaint.

'She was grateful top be keeping her job because other ministers would have sacked them both, but she deserved a second chance,' Ms Reynolds said.

Linda Reynolds has told a court she felt 'a bit sorry' for Brittany Higgins when she found out the former staffer was found naked in her office.

Ms Reynolds was initially angry because she only found out Ms Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann had entered her office after a night out in the early hours of March 23, 2019, three days after the fact.

The pair entered the ministerial suite on Saturday morning and Ms Reynolds and her chief-of-staff Fiona Brown found out about it on the Tuesday.

She told the court that she was angry about a few things - that Lehrmann had left unsecured documents in the suite, that Ms Higgins had left the suite unsecured, and security left the defence suite unlocked for several hours.

Ms Reynolds said there were two security checks on Ms Higgins, who was asleep on her couch with no clothes on, and it happened without the minister's knowledge.

Further, there was cleaning in the suite the following day without her knowledge.

When asked how she felt when she found out that Ms Higgins was found without clothes, Ms Reynolds said: 'I felt a bit sorry for her because it would have been a bit embarrassing to fall asleep in the boss' office.'

'There was nothing to indicate it was anything more than a security breach.'

She told the court that it was only a few days later when Ms Brown told her that Ms Higgins couldn't remember much from the night, but recalled someone being on top of her, that they became concerned.

'When you've got two people in their 20s who have been out together, and someone who can't remember but there was physical contact, there might have been a range of things that occurred,' she said.

'Fiona and I were worried enough to think that she couldn't remember, and she was worried, we needed to find the right people to help her.'

Ms Reynolds told the court that it wasn't her place to conduct an investigation, but she did want to direct Ms Higgins to people who could help her.

Ms Higgins had indicated she wanted to discuss the situation with her father before she went to the police.

Ms Reynolds told the court that she did not tell police because 'you can't report something on someone's behalf when they don't want you to, particularly in the absence of a complaint.'

Linda Reynolds has told a court she knows women who have been stalked and assaulted inside Parliament House more than 20 years ago.

'I'm not unfamiliar with what can happen in that building,' she said.

Ms Reynolds said she was a young woman when her best friend was raped and got pregnant, and gave the baby up for adoption.

Her cousin was also raped, 'and I helped her through that,' she said.

The senator also spoke about her heart condition, coronary microvascular disease - when the small blood vessels around the heart spasm.

The spasms are often caused by stress.

'It gives me symptoms of a heart attack,' she said.

'It's very painful.'

Linda Reynolds has told the court she became aware about gender issues while working in the army.

She told the court that she was asked to join a gender diversity board in 2011, when she was still in the military, because there had been a group of male cadets who filmed a woman without her consent.

During focus groups, she noticed that only three women attended - and they were unhappy about it - while another five didn't bother turning up.

When asked why they didn't want to be there, Ms Reynolds told the court one woman from the Air Force said: 'I don't want to be seen as a woman, spoken of as a woman, I just want to go back to my job.'

Ms Reynolds said: 'I thought "what's wrong with being a woman? What's wrong with being seen as a woman?" and that got me thinking about gender because I'd worked all my career in male-dominated fields.'

She told the court that she has continued to champion gender equality throughout her time in the Liberal Party.

'I think I could call myself the chief gender stirrer,' she told the court.

'Since elected, I have done reviews, I have done workshops, and I have done work with out leaders.'

Ms Reynolds told the court that she spoke with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull about the LNP's 'women problem' and tried to come up with ways they could address the issues.

Linda Reynolds told the court she was traumatised after travelling to Bali following the bombings in 2002.

Ms Reynolds was asked about her career during her evidence-in-chief on Monday afternoon.

She told the court that she hadn't smelled human decay prior to that trip, and she still dreams about it today.

'The Balinese had put up these floral wreaths ... and then we went to the morgue and you can imagine how terrible that was,' she said.

Ms Reynolds said conversations revolved around how to organise refrigeration to repatriate the bodies of Australians.

Her lawyer, Martin Bennett, asked if she ever had counselling.

'No,' she replied.

'And you can still smell it?' he asked.

'I still smell it and I still dream about it, too,' she said.

Linda Reynolds has been called to the witness stand.

Justice Tottle told her 'there are very few witnesses who do not find giving evidence very stressful,' and encouraged her to take a break if required.

The court heard that Senator Reynolds grew up in Western Australia and joined Young Liberals in the early '90s, before she joined the army reserves.

Her lawyer, Martin Bennett, read her career highlights to the court.

Ms Reynolds told the court she worked and partied hard in Canberra at the beginning of her political career.

'Mr Bennett, I was in my early 20s and I worked hard but I also socialised and I went out with other staff,' she said.

'The culture then was a lot harder in terms of partying with MPs, they used t ogo out with media and other MPs on Wednesdays and Thursday nights as well.

She said Thursdays in the Senate were 'a little dusty' before MPs left Canberra on Fridays.

Brittany Higgins' lawyer says Linda Reynolds' interview on Channel Seven's Spotlight program in August 2023 reveals her true feelings about the rape claims.

The senator made the comments on the TV program a year after the allegedly defamatory posts by Ms Higgins and David Sharaz were published.

Rachael Young SC told the court the senator took the chance to repair her reputation by speaking to a mass audience on the television program.

'She states her position clearly on how she handled the rape allegation and how she treated Ms Higgins ... and she does undermine the veracity of the rape allegation,' Ms Young said.

Ms Young pointed to the transcript of Ms Reynolds' Spotlight interview.

In the interview, the host said: 'You called [Ms Higgins] a lying cow.'

Ms Reynolds had responded: 'I did, but that was not about what did or didn't happen on that night because there were only two people there on that night and it's in dispute.'

Ms Young pointed out that Ms Reynolds didn't deny the allegation, but clearly questioned whether it was true.

She also said Ms Reynolds' reputation was 'baked in' by Ms Higgins' initial media interviews about her rape allegations in 2021 - which is not the subject of current court proceedings.

'Your Honour cannot ignore the reality that Senator Reynolds' reputation was already baked in at the time of the publications actually sued upon,' she said.

Ms Young told the court the 20 witnesses called on by Ms Reynolds would likely focus on the reputational damage after Ms Higgins went public with her allegations, rather than the 2023 social media posts.

'Your honour is going to hear over 20 witnesses coming to give evidence on behalf of the plaintiff who will say … in effect that they witnessed the damage that was occasioned by the senator in 2021,' she said.

'Very few of the witnesses being called will actually give any evidence to assist your honour as to what happened in 2023 and how the senator felt or her reputation after the publications actually sued upon.'

Ms Reynolds will take the witness stand when court resumes at 2.15pm local time (4.15pm AEST).

Brittany Higgins' lawyer Rachael Young said her client accepted that the social media posts conveyed the imputation the senator mishandled her rape allegations.

But Ms Young did not accept the senator’s claim Ms Higgins suggested the senator failed to provide support or engaged in a 'political cover-up' in social media posts.

'The alleged plan to inflict political damage on the senator and government is up to the senator to prove,' Ms Young said.

'It is a bold allegation that two young adults in their 20s planned to bring down the government.

'Ms Higgins was a Liberal Party supporter through and through, she was clearly aligned to the party, worked for them, travelled interstate for them and voted for them.

'The alleged plan will not be proven factual, it is ultimately irrelevant.'

(Pictured below: Brittany Higgins' legal team. Rachael Young SC is on the left)

Brittany Higgins' lawyer argues David Sharaz was responsible for an allegedly defamatory tweet, rather than her client.

The tweet was written by Mr Sharaz in January 2022, about ten months before Ms Higgins' rape claims were tried in court.

Ms Higgins alleged Ms Reynolds did not support her after her rape in 2019, and that she was pressured not to pursue her rape complaint with police.

Ms Reynolds has continually denied those allegations and is now suing over suggestions that she did not provide support to Ms Higgins.

In 2022 the tweet, Mr Sharaz shared a press release from Ms Reynolds' website.

The post read: 'There is a very real chance Linda Reynolds will be called to court this year to answer questions of her involvement in Brittany Higgins being pressured by her office not to continue with a complaint to police.

'She uploads this for her official website,' he continued, above a photo of Ms Reynolds with the headline 'empowering women'.

Ms Higgins commented on the post: 'I have no words.'

Mr Sharaz replied: 'I have a few.'

In court on Monday, Ms Higgins' lawyer Rachael Young SC said her client couldn't possibly be held responsible for that tweet because she didn't post it - she only commented on it.

Ms Reynolds has amended her statement of claim to allege Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz had a plan to damage herself and the former Liberal government.

She has argued the post above is evidence of the plan.

Ms Reynolds is also suing Mr Sharaz, but he bowed out earlier this year citing financial difficulties.

Ms Young also told the court that Ms Reynolds had a 'limitation problem'.

The post in question was written in January 2022, but Ms Reynolds launched the case in February 2023.

Western Australian law states defamation suits can only be brought within a year of the allegedly defamatory comments being published.

Linda Reynolds texted Bruce Lehrmann's defence barrister in October 2022, during his rape trial in Canberra, to ask for transcripts of Brittany Higgins' evidence.

In court on Monday, Ms Higgins' barrister Rachael Young SC told the court that Senator Reynolds had legal advice from her own lawyer saying she should not have transcripts from the criminal trial.

Ms Reynolds was a witness for the public prosecutor during the criminal case, and was yet to give evidence when she texted Lehrmann's lawyer.

Witnesses are not allowed to engage with court proceedings before they give evidence.

During the criminal case, on October 6, Ms Reynolds texted Lehrmann's lawyer Steven Whybrow SC, saying: 'Hi - do you have the daily transcript, and if so, are you able to provide to my lawyer?'

Another text suggested that he look at messages between Ms Higgins and her former colleague Nicole Hamar.

Mr Whybrow had responded to the senator and explained why he couldn't provide the transcripts.

Ms Young told the court on Monday: 'When your honour sees the context it can only be read as a suggestion that the texts might help the accused and not help Ms Higgins.'

Brittany Higgins' lawyer Rachael Young SC accuses Linda Reynolds of engaging in a campaign of harassment against her client, and sending confidential emails about the $2.4million settlement to journalists.

On February 15, 2021 - the day Ms Higgins' rape claims were first published on news.com.au - Senator Reynolds called her former staffer a 'lying cow' in a public area of her ministerial suite in Parliament House.

Ms Reynolds then apologised to Ms Higgins and paid her damages. Ms Higgins signed a non-disparagement agreement, which meant she was not allowed to speak out about the senator in relation to those comments again.

In court on Monday, Ms Young said Ms Reynolds then told journalists she settled with Ms Higgins to 'make it go away'.

Ms Young told the court that statement was not consistent with someone who was genuinely apologetic.

She then took the court's attention to Ms Higgins' $2.4million settlement with the Commonwealth in December 2022.

Ms Higgins's successful claim was over the way her rape claims were handled by her former parliamentary bosses, including Ms Reynolds. She accused the senator of failing to help her.

Ms Young tendered a range of emails to the court which were sent from Ms Reynolds to columnist Janet Albrechtsen, who works for The Australian.

The emails were not official - they were sent from Ms Reynolds' personal Gmail address to Ms Albrechtsen's personal Gmail address.

The first email was sent on December 12, 2022 - just after Ms Higgins won her settlement.

'June letter from commonwealth solicitors, note that the letter of confidentiality was never signed by me,' Ms Reynolds told Ms Albrechtsen.

Six minutes later, she sent another with an attachment: 'My response to government solicitors.'

Another email, sent six minutes after that, contained a confidential letter from Commonwealth solicitors.

Ms Albrechtsen then published an article about how Ms Reynolds was not allowed to defend herself during Ms Higgins' settlement with the Commonwealth.

Brittany Higgins' defamation barrister Rachael Young SC has told the court Linda Reynolds had 'woman's intuition' and should have known the former staffer was raped.

Ms Young made the comments during her opening address in Western Australian Supreme Court on Monday morning.

Senator Reynolds held a meeting with Ms Higgins in her Parliament House office on April 1, 2019, on the same couch she was raped on about a week earlier.

Lawyers for Senator Reynolds previously argued she did not know Ms Higgins was raped, let alone that it happened on that couch. They argued Ms Reynolds would not have held the meeting there if she had known.

However, Ms Young told the court on Monday that Ms Reynolds ought to have known - evident by the fact that the senator had described Bruce Lehrmann, Ms Higgins' rapist, as 'shifty'.

'She had a woman's intuition ... she had enough to say that Ms Higgins' rapist was "shifty",' Ms Young said.

'We ask your honour to find it was not credible or believable that the senator had no inkling of a sexual assault.'

'She had a mountain of information that Ms Higgins had been sexually assaulted.'

The barrister turned the court's attention to a report written by security guards on the night of the rape, which said the female staff member who arrived at Parliament House appeared intoxicated and was later found undressed.

'She ought to have put two and two together,' Ms Young said.

'We say Senator Reynolds ... did not know nothing about the sexual assault by the time she came to meet with Ms Higgins on April 1.'

Linda Reynolds is set to give evidence in her defamation case against Brittany Higgins.

She arrived at the WA Supreme Court on Monday and told media: 'I'm very much looking forward to finally after three-and-a-half years having the opportunity to tell the truth.'

The Liberal senator will be on the stand for about a week, whereas Ms Higgins will give evidence in the final week of August.

Two months after Brittany Higgins was raped in Linda Reynolds' office in Parliament House, she flew from Canberra to Perth to campaign for the Coalition during the 2019 federal election.

Social media posts and photos released by the WA Supreme Court last week show that Ms Higgins told her mother, Kelly Hutchinson, that appearing in the background of a Liberal presser was 'undoubtedly the peak of my existence'.

In the post, she shared a photo of then-prime minister Scott Morrison addressing a crowd. Ms Higgins' smiling face could be seen in the background.

'I've finally fulfilled our shared life goal Kelly Hutchinson of being the person smiling and nodding in the background of a press conference,' she wrote in the post, on May 13, 2019.

'It's been a monumental evening. This is undoubtedly the peak of my existence.'

Other photos showed her smiling on the campaign trail with Ms Reynolds and her colleagues, and cheering when the LNP won the election on May 18, 2019.

In April, a Federal Court judge found on a balance of probabilities that Ms Higgins was raped by her former colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Ms Reynolds' office in Parliament House in March, 2019.

The post and photos from May 2019 fly in the face of other claims by Ms Higgins that she was required to mostly work in her own hotel room during the campaign, seven days a week for six weeks.

Ms Higgins has never made those claims in a court, but she did make them in her $2.4million settlement deed with the Commonwealth.

She was granted the payout over the way Ms Reynolds treated her in the days and weeks after her rape in 2019.

Ms Reynolds maintains Ms Higgins was supported.

Linda Reynolds will rely on key photos of Brittany Higgins campaigning with her in Perth during the 2019 federal election.

Ms Higgins has long maintained Senator Reynolds and her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown did very little to support her after her rape in March 2019.

She claimed as much in her $2.4million settlement deed with the Commonwealth in December 2022, which was rife with allegations against her former bosses.

According to the settlement claim, which was released last year by the Federal Court, Ms Higgins told Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown she was raped and they told her to cast it aside.

'Ms Brown made it clear by her words and demeanour that the events of 22/23 March 2019 must be put to one side and that [Ms Higgins] needed to remain silent about the sexual assault, in order to keep her job/career,' the deed read.

'In that context, [Ms Higgins] felt she had no choice but to abandon the pursuit of the complaint of sexual assault with the AFP.'

She claimed Ms Brown didn't ask if she wanted to report the incident to police, or if she needed legal advice.

Ms Higgins also has the long-held belief that she was given an ultimatum after she disclosed her allegations to Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown - she could either go with the minister to Perth and help campaign for the forthcoming election, or she could go home to the Gold Coast and leave Canberra forever.

Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown previously told a court that they did not give her an 'ultimatum', but she did have the option of going to Perth - so she went in April 2019, weeks after the assault.

According to the deed, Ms Higgins was 'required to mostly work in her own hotel room, seven days a week for six weeks'. She has never made that claim in a court before.

(Pictured below: Linda Reynolds delivering a speech during the 2019 federal election. Brittany Higgins sits in the front row, in black)

However, new photos released by the WA Supreme Court show Ms Higgins handing out flyers in the street, smiling with her colleagues, and cheering during speeches while donning a blue Liberal polo shirt.

Ms Higgins can be seen posing for photos with then-prime minister Scott Morrison, and watching Ms Reynolds deliver a speech after the Coalition won the election.

In court on Friday, Ms Reynolds' lawyer Martin Bennett said Mr Bennett said the evidence showed how Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz falsely created a narrative that there was no support after her rape.

'The fact she had been raped was traumatic and terrible but it needed something more to attract the attention, to attract media ­interest, to attract the promotion of Ms Higgins, so she made it a political sex scandal,' he told the court.

'That’s the fiction that needed a villain and she cast Linda Reynolds in that role.'

The deed also says Ms Reynolds did not engage with her at all during the election campaign, but a photo tendered to two courts showed Ms Higgins sitting next to Ms Reynolds at her birthday in Perth.

In that photo, she was wearing the same dress she was raped in.

(Pictured below: Then-prime minister Scott Morrison delivering a speech during the 2019 federal election. Brittany Higgins sits in the back row on the far left)

Linda Reynolds' defamation case against her former staffer Brittany Higgins in the WA Supreme Court will continue from 10.30am local time (12.30pm AEST).

The case hinges on social media posts Ms Higgins and her husband, David Sharaz, wrote in 2022 and 2023 that the Liberal senator claims damaged her reputation.

In April, a Federal Court judge found that Ms Higgins was likely raped by her former colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Parliament House in March 2019. The rape took place on a couch inside Ms Reynolds' office.

Ms Higgins has long-maintained Ms Reynolds and her former chief-of-staff Fiona Brown did not support her in the wake of her assault. Ms Reynolds and Ms Brown maintain they did try to support her.

The social media posts were critical of the way Ms Reynolds handled the rape claims.

The trial began on Friday and is set down for four weeks.