Read emails Brittany Higgins’ boyfriend David Sharaz sent to prosecutors during Bruce Lehrmann probe

Emails show what Brittany Higgins’ boyfriend David Sharaz said to police and a victim’s advocate, ahead of warning detectives she could go public over her concerns about their investigation into Bruce Lehrmann. 

The emails between Mr Sharaz, Detective Inspector Marcus Boorman and ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates were this week tabled at a Board of Inquiry, which is probing the criminal investigation into Mr Lehrmann.

Mr Lehrmann was accused of raping Ms Higgins at Parliament House in March 2019. He has continually denied the allegations.

The messages emerged as Detective Superintendent Scott Moller revealed to the inquiry that he gave Ms Higgins a stern warning against speaking to the media and said she was ‘extremely frustrating’ to deal with before Ms Yates stepped in.

Ms Yates became Ms Higgins’ support person and accompanied her to court every day during the rape trial in October. She also handled all correspondence between Ms Higgins and police for the remainder of the investigation and trial.

The first email that Sharaz sent – this time to ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates

The first email from Mr Sharaz, sent on July 29, 2021, had the subject line ‘News Story’. It was sentfive months after Ms Higgins first went public with her rape allegations. 

It began with details about how Ms Higgins had ‘put her life on hold’ during the investigation and warned that the investigation and political back-and-forth had an ‘impact’ on Ms Higgins. 

‘We have both remained silent, as per the direction of the police, and have asked them to keep us in the loop on any media commentary they plan to make.’

‘l was hoping we could once again seek guidance on whether we can expect an outcome, as indicated, by the end of the month?

‘We will continue to abide by the no public commentary direction in place.’

The following day, Mr Sharaz called Detective Boorman and asked when Mr Lehrmann would be charged.

He followed the phone call up with an email to Detective Boorman and Supt Scott Moller, which said: ‘I trust you’re both well. Thank you for your time on the phone this morning Marcus.’

‘Just confirming the desire of Brittany to have this process resolved sooner rather than later, and her expectation for a direction to be given as to what the next step is.

‘She expects that direction by the end of the day as indicated by you both when you flew up to Brisbane. As always, happy to discuss over the phone.’

Within an hour of Detective Boorman receiving the phone call from Mr Sharaz, Supt Moller was given ­instruct­ions to charge Mr Lehrmann, the inquiry heard on Tuesday. 

One of the emails David Sharaz sent to an investigator examining Ms Higgins’ allegations

The emails were sent after News Corp published an article on July 29 about the moment former Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews’ claimed prosecutors were responsible for a delay in deciding whether or not to charge Mr Lehrmann.

Shane Drumgold, the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, rejected the claim.

That same day, Mr Sharaz emailed Ms Yates about the news article: ‘What’s going on? We’re reading this news about it. Is a decision going to be made as was forecast in the July 12 ­meeting?’

Ms Yates then forwarded the email to Inspector Boorman.

The inquiry heard that Mr Sharaz phoned Inspector Boorman and said Ms Higgins wanted to release a media statement about the amount of time police were taking to charge Mr Lehrmann.

Supt Moller’s diary records also noted he had a briefing with Inspector Boorman about the case, which included a ‘discussion re Higgins contemplating media release’.

Supt Moller agreed that at the time the decision was made by his boss, Commander Michael Chew, investigators were faced with ‘the potential threat of Ms Higgins going public about the delay’. 

During the hearing on Wednesday, Supt Moller was questioned by Ms Yates’ barrister Peggy Dwyer who asked him about Ms Higgins’ second police interview in May, 2021.

During that interview, Ms Higgins was shown CCTV of her and Mr Lehrmann entering Parliament House on the evening she alleged she was raped.

Supt Moller agreed that he said to Ms Higgins, during that interview: ‘There should be no further contact with the media, stop talking to the media, if you’re going to speak to the media and it can’t go ahead, it will all have been for nothing.’

Brittany Higgins is pictured, left, outside ACT Supreme Court in October last year with Heidi Yates, right

‘I was honest about the issues that were being generated by the media coverage,’ he told the inquiry.

Dr Dwyer told the inquiry that Ms Higgins was in a room with five police offices when he warned her about media.

She added that Ms Higgins had watched footage of the night she was allegedly assaulted, had her truthfulness questioned by officers, and was ‘visibly shaken and crying’.

Dr Dwyer said: ‘There are now five officers in the room when you’re giving her that advice and she might have thought you were scolding her.’

Supt Moller said: ‘She could have, yes.’ 

He explained that he was referring to the potential prosecution of Mr Lehrmann when he made those comments, rather than Ms Higgins’ ability to campaign against sexual assault.

‘We were fixated on prosecution … and moving this matter to a prosecution and doing everything we could,’ he said.

‘The media had the potential to undermine everything we were trying to do – to get a prosecution.’

The inquiry was shown notes from Supt Moller’s diary in his diary stating that he warned Ms Higgins not to speak with media. 

Australian Federal Police Detective Superintendent Scott Moller (pictured) revealed the ‘exceptional’ pressure police had been placed under to bring charges against Bruce Lehrmann

Earlier on Wednesday, Supt Moller said Ms Higgins was ‘extremely frustrating’ to work with before Ms Yates became her support person.

Dr Dwyer said to Supt Moller: ‘A significant aspect was that Ms Higgins was not willing to provide a formal statement at that time [during the initial investigation]’. 

‘Your view was the strategy adopted by Ms Higgins ended the investigation.’

Supt Moller said: ‘Ms Higgins had already done media interviews and it appeared to me that from what I was told, Ms Higgins wanted the matter reported and wanted it to be a live investigation – she wanted it to be a live investigation to give reliability to the story that was being aired.’

The inquiry heard Ms Higgins then sent an email to Ms Yates and said ‘Can you help me?’ because she wanted help communicating with police. Supt Moller agreed that Ms Higgins was within her rights to request Ms Yates’ assistance.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Supt Moller said officers were under a ‘significant amount of pressure’ over the politically-charged case. 

‘There was a real desire to expedite this process and get Mr Lehrmann before the court,’ he said.

Supt Moller later reiterated the ‘exceptional amount of pressure on us to get this done’.

This pressure led to police skipping usual processes, even though Supt Moller said he did not think there was enough evidence to charge Mr Lehrmann.

‘I swore the summons because I did not want to put any of my staff in the position where they had to do something they didn’t want to do, didn’t believe in, so I did it,’ he said.

‘I didn’t think there was enough evidence and then I received the director’s advice and certainly from his advice, I decided to go ahead.’

Supt Moller said the stress of the investigation impacted many police officers, some of whom had to take leave from work.

He also said police were wrong to provide Ms Higgins’ sensitive counselling notes to prosecutors and defence lawyers.

‘That’s the bottom line, we shouldn’t have handed them over and it’s a mistake that we made,’ he told the inquiry on Monday.

Mr Lehrmann faced a trial in the ACT Supreme Court in October, 2022 but juror misconduct meant a verdict was not reached.

The charge was later dropped due to concerns about the impact a second trial would have on the mental health of Ms Higgins.