Linda Reynolds says she never agreed to keeping confidential documents relating to Brittany Higgins’ personal injury settlement private and had “no particular concern” about leaking the letters to a columnist at the Australian.

The Western Australian Liberal senator is suing Higgins over a series of social media posts, published in July 2023, which she claims have damaged her reputation.

Under cross-examination by Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, which began on Wednesday afternoon, Reynolds was asked to recount her actions after Higgins’ alleged 2019 rape in Parliament House was made public.

Young showed the court two letters sent to Reynolds’ lawyer in June and December 2022 from the Commonwealth’s lawyers – both marked confidential and subject to legal professional privilege – which outlined the proposed terms of Reynolds’ involvement in the civil claim.

Higgins settled a personal injury claim against the government on 12 December 2022. It was later revealed in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial the settlement amounted to $2.445m.

The June letter, which Reynolds characterised in court as a proposal, requested all parties keep the claims and any mediation meetings confidential until the conclusion of the criminal trial in the ACT against Lehrmann.

Lehrmann has always vehemently denied raping Brittany Higgins and pleaded not guilty at a criminal trial, which was aborted due to juror misconduct. A second trial did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health.

As part of Lehrmann’s failed defamation trial against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson, a federal court in April found that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Higgins.

While Reynolds acknowledged in court that she would have seen the “confidential” and “legal professional privilege applies” markings on the first page, Reynolds said she did not consider herself bound to it because she hadn’t signed it.

A later letter sent by the Commonwealth’s lawyers on 6 December 2022 instructed Reynolds not attend the upcoming mediation or make any public comment, and maintain confidentiality about any of its details in order to give the Commonwealth the “best position to achieve a resolution at the mediation”.

Reynolds’ lawyer, Ashley Tsacalos, responded three days later outlining concerns that Reynolds’ defence of the claims would be “hampered” if she could not attend.

In court on Wednesday, Reynolds said the letter had made her “very angry” and she considered the federal government was attempting to “lock me down”.

On the day of mediation, 12 December 2022, Reynolds sent the June letter from her personal email address to Janet Albrechtsen, a columnist at the Australian newspaper.

Young said the confidentiality requirements still applied despite Reynolds not signing the document or agreeing to its contents.

“The letter of confidentiality was never signed by me so my recollection is while they sent the proposal, what the Commonwealth wanted in terms of locking me down, I never agreed,” Reynolds said.

“So therefore I had no particular concern about sending that to Ms Albrechtsen.”

Young asked whether Reynolds understood that legal professional privilege could apply to documents regardless of whether the recipient signs them. Reynolds replied she did not.

“What was top of my mind was the fact that I was not going to sign [it],” Reynolds said. “I hadn’t signed an agreement to be locked down.”

An article by Albrechtsen and another journalist at the Australian was published on 14 December 2022, titled “Linda Reynolds ‘muzzled’ in Brittany Higgins lawsuit defence” and containing details of the confidential letters.

Earlier on Wednesday, Reynolds had accused the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, of “seeking to silence” her.

Reynolds said the claims that she had not given Higgins adequate support after her alleged rape in March 2019 were “utterly defendable”.

“My defence was to be no defence … I was outraged.”

Text messages between Lehrmann barrister and Reynolds

As part of an eleventh hour subpoena, the court was shown select pages of a document held by the office of ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, and handed to both legal teams on Wednesday morning.

The document contained text messages between Reynolds and Lehrmann’s then barrister, Steven Whybrow, between 1 June 2022 and 31 December 2022, which were given to the ACT’s board of inquiry.

In one message, pointed to by Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, the former defence minister texted a picture of herself in a jacket. Reynolds had earlier claimed she thought she’d lost the jacket. The court was told Higgins was allegedly seen wearing the jacket after she left Reynolds’ office following the alleged rape.

On 6 October 2022, when the criminal trial had begun, Reynolds texted a picture of Higgins in a white outfit to Whybrow, followed by another picture of Kate Middleton in a similar outfit.

“Ms Higgins had a predilection for expensive clothes, including my jacket, and [those messages were] probably a little catty … and [I was] being a bit overly sensitive about her imitating Kate Middleton going into the trial,” Reynolds said.

The defence’s cross-examination of the text messages is yet to commence.

‘Fearful’ of losing defence minister role, Reynolds says

Reynolds said she had been “fearful” of losing her position as defence minister after Higgins’ allegations became public and, in particular, after the media reported her calling Higgins a “lying cow”.

Young said Reynolds directly apologised for those comments on 5 March 2021 – two days after first publication – and only after being threatened with defamation action by Higgins’ lawyer.

Reynolds said by 2 March, she was fearful of losing her job as defence minister and of her deteriorating health conditions.

“Fearful is an understatement,” Reynolds said, adding she had been “completely and utterly turned into, as Mr Bennett put it, a villain … it was overwhelming”.

Reynolds denied Young’s assertion that she only apologised to Higgins to prevent further legal action.

She also told a defamation trial she felt like a “punching clown on the fairground” due to critical social media posts from Higgins and her husband, David Sharaz.

In an Instagram story in July 2023, Higgins told Reynolds it was “time to stop” after media reported Reynolds would refer the personal injury settlement to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

Reynolds said the post inferred she was continuing to harass Higgins, which she said continued the “pile on” against her.

Reynolds is also suing Sharaz for two tweets published to his X account in January and December 2022. Sharaz said in April that he would no longer fight the case as he could not afford the legal costs.

• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html