Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds has linked Labor colleague Kimberley Kitching’s death to the saga over Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation during a defamation trial.

Reynolds is suing Higgins over a series of social media posts containing alleged mistruths concerning her conduct that she believes have damaged her reputation.

She told the Western Australian Supreme Court that the late Kitching warned her in parliament in early 2021 that the Labor Party “knew about the incident in my office two years prior to that and that they were going to rain hell on me and the government”.

“I said to her, ‘why would anybody weaponise such an incident’,” she on Tuesday.

Reynolds said Kitching had passed a letter containing allegations about the mishandling of the Higgins incident in 2019 to the Australian Federal Police and Senator Penny Wong was “incredibly angry” with her because “Labor could have weaponised it”.

She said Kitching was left “angry and upset” after Senator Wong confronted her, before Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young objected to comments about the senator’s feelings.

Reynolds said she was “incredulous” Labor would make such a plan and that she elevated the issue to the prime minister’s office before telling the court her blood pressure was rising.

Justice Paul Tottle suggested adjourning the court, to which Senator Reynolds replied: “Thank you, this is a particularly emotional point, given that it led to Senator Kitching’s death”.

Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching died from a suspected heart attack in 2022. Photo: AAP

Reynolds said she didn’t hear anything about Higgins’ alleged mistreatment again until Samantha Maiden from News Corp published an article and Network Ten’s The Project ran a story.

“I was incredibly angry, I was incredibly hurt and (Ms Higgins) could not have picked a worse issue to bring me down,” she said.

“It is such an abhorrent, horrid thing to say to any woman that you’ve mistreated their rape allegation and not only that you’ve covered it up.

“I was angry at Brittany but I was also angry at myself and just wondering how we had got it so wrong.”

Reynolds said she was left confused about what cues she had missed.

“It’s not like we just got a little wrong. What she was saying is we got it completely wrong because her recollections were completely different from mine,” she said.

The Senator said she didn’t doubt Ms Higgins’ memory of the alleged rape “but everything else she said I knew weren’t true”.

Ms Kitching died from a suspect heart attack on March 10, 2022.

Earlier Tuesday, Higgins was rebuked by Reynolds’ lawyer for continuing to post on social media during her high-profile defamation trial.

Lawyer Martin Bennett told the court after Reynolds finished her first day in the witness box Higgins, who is in France, had posted on Instagram while her former boss was giving evidence.

“Ms Higgins thinks she can provide a social media running commentary on my client’s evidence,” he told the Western Australian Supreme Court on Monday.

“It’s extraordinarily inappropriate.”

The post is a photo of a book titled How Many More Women? How the law silences women, along with the words: “Pertinent reading”.

Reynolds’ lawyer hit out at Higgins over this social media post. Source: Instagram

Bennett said Reynolds would submit an amended statement of claim on Tuesday to reflect the post.

“I would hope somebody would advise Ms Higgins to give up commentary,” he said.

The trial continues.

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-AAP