The security guard who let Brittany Higgins and her Liberal staffer colleague into Parliament House on the night he allegedly raped her in 2019 has finally broken her silence to the ABC’s Four Corners.
Parliament House security guard Nikola Anderson signed Higgins and the male staffer into Parliament House at around 1:50am. They had just come from a big night at a club.
“It was just strange to us that they were there at that time of night, together, walking to go into the office,” she told Four Corners.
Anderson said she noticed Higgins appeared to be a bit drunk and had grass stains down her white dress – clear signs of someone who is not in a state to give consent.
Four Corners reports that the male Liberal staffer then left Parliament House not long after, at 2:35am. That’s when Anderson was asked to check on Higgins, who was still inside the office of her boss at the time, then-Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds.
“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,” Anderson said.
She went on to say how shocked she saw when she saw Higgins, but that nothing made her consider if Higgins had been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted.
“The sound of the door opening has then made the female open her eyes, look at me, and then she’s rolled over onto her side,” Anderson continued.
“So therefore, my take on it was: she’s conscious, she’s breathing, she doesn’t look like she’s in distress.”
Anderson’s insight on the situation goes beyond the night that Higgins was allegedly raped, because it also conflicts with the government’s narrative of what happened next.
Back in February, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the Liberal staffer in question had already been fired over a supposed security breach that night.
But because both Higgins and the staffer worked for Reynolds, they were totally allowed to be inside her office that night.
“What was the security breach? Because the night that we were on shift, there was no security breach,” Anderson said.
It wasn’t until last week that ACT Police finally contacted Anderson, roughly two years after Higgins was allegedly raped.
Anderson intends on giving them a statement piecing together the parts of the story that only she can tell.
“Nobody really knows the truth except me,” she said.
You can watch the full Four Corners episode here.
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