Parliament House security who let Brittany Higgins and ‘rapist’ in reveals what really happened

A security guard who let Brittany Higgins and her alleged rapist into Parliament House says she later found her passed out naked on a couch.

Ms Higgins, then 24, claims a high-flying senior Liberal Party staffer raped her on that couch in the office of Defence Minister Linda Reynolds’ office in March 2019. 

The colleagues were on a night out in Canberra and stumbled back to the office drunk about 1.50am, where they were buzzed through security.

Veteran security guard Nikola Anderson said the pair took her by surprise because it was odd they would come back to the office on a Friday night.

‘They basically walked in together. She was wearing a white cocktail dress. I’d noticed that she’d had grass stains down one side of her body on this pure white dress. He seemed to be quite dressed up as well,’ she told ABC’s Four Corners.

‘And it was just strange to us that they were there at that time of night together, wanting to go into the office.’

Ms Anderson said later that night she was shocked to walk in on Ms Higgins lying completely naked on the couch. 

She said the young woman was roused by her presence and looked her in the eye before rolling on to her side.

“As I opened the door, I noticed that the female was lying on her back, completely naked, on the lounge that was adjacent to the door, for which I’ve gone, “Oh”,’ Ms Anderson recalled.

‘My [thought] on it was that she’s conscious. She’s breathing. She doesn’t look like she’s in distress. She’s just sleeping off her night. And with that, I shut the door, and I exited the room.’

She reported what she found to her team leader, who advised to leave the sleeping woman there on the couch.

‘I made sure her dignity was intact by shutting the door,’ she said.

‘Staffers can come in at any time of the day and night, and I didn’t want anybody else to witness her completely naked. 

‘I was trying to do the right thing by keeping her dignity intact.’    

CCTV showed the man returned to security by himself at 2.35am, just 45 minutes after entering, and left Parliament House quickly.

‘My colleague had tried to make conversation with him and he seemed to be in a hurry,’ she said. 

‘That was when my colleague and I decided that we needed to push it up the chain and notify our night shift team leader that there might’ve been something a bit strange going on.’ 

Government insiders claimed in the days after Ms Higgins’ allegations that the accused rapist staffer was sacked for sneaking into the minister’s parliamentary office on false pretenses and not behaving with ‘integrity’.  

They claimed the alleged breach wasn’t the first security issue flagged in relation to the male staffer at the time.

However, Ms Anderson rubbished talk of a security breach and said all protocols were followed that night.

‘What was the security breach? Because the night that we were on shift, there was no security breach,’ she said.

‘Their pass enables them to be where they want to be within Parliament House. If they hadn’t worked for that minister, that would be a different story because we wouldn’t have allowed them entry because it’s not their office, they have no business being in there.’

Ms Anderson was quizzed as to why the pair weren’t questioned about being there at time of the morning. 

‘It’s not our job. They have the clearance, they have their passes, their passes were active. It’s not our job to deny them entry,’ she said.

‘If they want to go in there, intoxicated or not, they have full rein to do so.’ 

‘I mean, we can’t question what it is that they do. As long as their passes are active and we know that they can be in there, then that’s it.’

Ms Anderson said neither were carrying their Parliament House passes, but she was able to find them in the system when they showed ID.

‘As she’s gone to put her shoes back on after she’s walked through and cleared herself, she couldn’t get them on,’ she said. 

‘That’s how I realised how intoxicated this girl was because she just could not get her shoes on for the life of her.

Ms Anderson then took Ms Higgins and the male staffer to Ms Reynolds’ office, unlocked the door, and let them inside.

‘Nobody really knows the truth except me. Security did do what they could, and would have done more had it have been required,’ she said.

The explosive claims comes weeks after Parliament insiders recently claimed the advisor was already being closely monitored by the government after other serious offences occurred, The Australian reported.

Insiders told the publication the man had no official work purpose to be in the minister’s office on the night of the alleged sexual assault, despite him claiming otherwise.

They also claim his employment was terminated before Senator Reynolds was made aware of the rape allegations. 

The male staffer’s access pass for Parliament House was cancelled four days after the alleged rape, Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed in February.

He said the man’s employment was terminated due to a security breach.

‘That was the reason for it. As I understand it, it related to the entry into those premises,’ Mr Morrison said.

The Prime Minister’s office has declined to reveal the nature of the male staffer’s other alleged offences.

Senator Reynolds has come under heavy fire for her handling of the allegations and was recently admitted to a hospital  a precaution for a ‘pre-existing medical condition’. 

Several women have since come forward to allege they were assaulted by the same man since Ms Higgins went public with her claims in February and has since made a a formal complaint to Australian Federal Police.

The allegations prompted a former intern to share intimate details about her experiences with the man on a couch in the office of a Nationals senator at Parliament House in 2014.

While she says their encounters were consensual, she claims she felt ‘pressured’ to have sex with him on other occasions. 

‘Nothing ‘rapey’ happened. But that makes me feel really ill. I feel like he wanted to [take me there] because he wanted to show off his power. He was obviously much more important than I was,’ the woman told news.com.au.

‘There was one time I kept saying, ‘No, I am really tired, I don’t want to do anything’ and he kept being like, ‘Oh, come on. Come on.’

She also shared Facebook messages which refer to the couch in the senator’s office, which the man insists is ‘comfortable’ as he invited her there.

‘The lounge in his office is really comfy, good for doing readings. haha,’ he wrote.

The woman replied: ‘mmm, depends, do you tend to talk a lot whilst studying?’

The man adds he’s usually ‘a good boy’ and has an essay to write.

She claims the encounter occurred five years before the staffer allegedly raped Ms Higgins.

The woman was a university student at the time and interning for a Labor MP.

The man, whom she described as ‘ambitious’ with dreams of becoming Prime Minister, was also an intern at the time for a Nationals MP.

She first met him at drinks where she got ‘very drunk’ and went back to his house.

‘We kissed that night. I was very drunk and he was totally sober,’ the woman recalled.

‘I never felt weird about that but there were other instances where he definitely pressured me. We never had proper sex.’

The woman added she will come forward to police to make a statement if it helps with their inquiries. 

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins is leading a review of workplace culture in Parliament House in the wake of the Brittany Higgins rape allegations. 

Ms Jenkins’ review is expected to issue a final report in November.