Power and politics: how the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins sparked a reckoning

This week, after a series of delays caused in part by the wave of media attention the trial has garnered, it began. On Tuesday, wearing a navy suit, tan boots and a gold-faced watch, Lehrmann pleaded not guilty.

The two were colleagues inside the office of then defence industries minister Linda Reynolds and were among the crowd at the Dock on that Friday night. Later, they went to another bar in Canberra with two other Liberal party staffers.

At about 1.30am, Higgins and Lehrmann shared a cab. She recalls him telling her that he needed to go via Parliament House to pick up some documents. Despite neither of them having their security passes, they found their way through security and into the office.

Higgins broke down as she watched herself going through security, struggling to put her shoes on, while Lehrmann waited.

The first person that Higgins told about the alleged rape was her chief of staff, Fiona Brown, about four days later, during a private meeting, according to Higgins. Her presence with Lehrmann inside parliament in the early hours of that Saturday morning had been a breach of security, and she at first feared she would lose her job.

On 1 April she had a meeting with both Brown and Reynolds inside the same office where she alleges the rape occurred.

She was not trying to damage the Liberal party by coming forward, she said, but to change it.

The trial continues.