Ms. Higgins typically struggled to recall particular particulars from 2019. She was upfront about the truth that didn’t keep in mind sure elements of the evening in query, when, she mentioned, she had been extraordinarily drunk.
The tough scrutiny complainants might be put below in sexual assault circumstances was additionally one thing Mr. Whybrow, the protection lawyer, acknowledged in his opening assertion, when he mentioned, “Complainants’ allegations must be handled critically and they need to be supplied mechanism and procedures to present proof in a secure setting.”
However, he added, “if we elevate that too extremely and assume as a result of somebody has made an allegation that it should be proper, then we not have the presumption of innocence.” So when it was time for cross-examination, he pulled no punches, grilling Ms. Higgins about inconsistencies in accounts she has given to the police, the media and in court docket.
However her lawyer argued that small inconsistencies, like differing accounts of the colour of a automobile, mustn’t make or break the case.
Some discrepancies should not simply beauty, however as an alternative “elementary and important” to the case, Mr. Whybrow mentioned in his opening assertion, giving the instance of whether or not Ms. Higgins had her costume scrunched up round her waist, like she says, or was bare, as a safety guard says. They “carry totally different inferences,” Mr. Whybrow mentioned.
He hasn’t gotten to that concern but throughout cross-examination. However to date, he has canvassed inconsistencies together with: that Ms. Higgins testified to maintaining the costume she wore below her mattress for six months, when pictures revealed that she had really worn it lower than two months later; that she instructed journalists that Linda Reynolds’s chief of workers had seen the CCTV footage from the evening in query, when in reality she could have simply made reference to that CCTV footage current; and that she instructed journalists she needed to wait two months to get a psychologist appointment utilizing Parliament’s worker help program, however was really give an appointment inside a month.
By the top of the primary week of the trial, two photos had been painted.
The one put ahead by Ms. Higgins was of a younger girl struggling to manage within the aftermath of a big trauma, whose actions replicate that she was scared and took a big period of time to return to phrases with what had occurred to her, and whose recollections have blurred due to how overwhelming every part was.
