Brittany Higgins's allegation she was raped by former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann in then-minister Linda Reynolds's office has had far-reaching consequences, and perhaps the most extraordinary part of the tale has been playing out in Federal Court this week.
oh noooo. she wore a dress again.
This is dingo ate my baby trial level of litigating stupid details of a woman’s reaction.
“You didn’t immediately throw away all the clothes you were wearing?”
“No…”
“SHE’S CLEARLY LYING ABOUT THE WHOLE THING!”
You threw away the clothes you were wearing?
yes
What are you trying to hide?!!??!!
protip: nobody fucking knows how anyone is going to react to anything and humans are massively overconfident in our ability to detect lies. Also bodylanguage experts are modern mediums.
It fries my brain that it seems the majority of people think body language and ‘tells’ are a thing, or that polygraphs work. I love playing cards with people looking for tells and fucking with them.
I remember a work mate getting singled out for being drunk by a cop. He said he hadn’t had a drink. The cop said he was lying and he could tell because he was slurring, and his face looked sloppy. Well, he actually hadn’t touched any alcohol at all. He’d had a stroke some years previously and always looked like that - not obvious or off, but just a tiny bit off kilter. Of course, the cops then arc’d up for being shown up…
She did some things after that night that made it impossible to get physical evidence that supports or refutes her claim. It would have been a much simpler case if there was some Bruce jizz on the dress.