Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has denied she suspected Brittany Higgins had been raped following an incident in her ministerial office, as her handling of the case is probed at a defamation trial.

The former defence minister is suing Higgins over social media posts containing alleged mistruths that she claims have damaged her reputation.

On Friday, Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young quizzed the retiring politician about the office incident on March 23, 2019, and her response in the days and weeks that followed.

She said Reynolds knew Higgins had been found undressed on her lounge early that morning, that Bruce Lehrmann had been on top of her and that he left the building before Higgins, who appeared intoxicated.

She also said Reynolds had wanted Higgins to talk to police and that she knew her father was coming to Canberra to be with his daughter and that she had been referred for counselling.

“You believed that sexual activity without consent had occurred in your office,” Young said in Western Australia’s Supreme Court.

“That is not correct,” Reynolds said.

Young questioned Reynolds about her meeting with Higgins on April 1, in the same office in which the assault allegedly occurred.

“What I remember saying is that ‘I am your boss, I’m your employer, and I’m not the right person to be having discussions with you about intimate matters’,” Reynolds said.

She said she was not trained to discuss the incident with Higgins, and the staffer told her she had received counselling material and would follow it up.

“I certainly talked to her about the security breach and the implications of that,” she said.

Young put it to Reynolds that “at the very least, you needed to give Ms Higgins an opportunity to tell you everything that she was comfortable telling you about what had happened”.

“That’s exactly what I did,” Reynolds said

“You shut her down … when you said I am not the right person to,” Young said.

“I would still do the same thing today if I had a young staff member who couldn’t remember and who was in distress,” Reynolds said.

Young asked Reynolds if she told Higgins “as women, this is something we go through”.

“That’s absolutely incorrect,” she said.

Reynolds also denied she told Higgins that if she intended reporting the matter to police she should tell her first.

Young also pointed Reynolds to evidence she gave to Lehrmann’s aborted criminal trial about the events in her office after Higgins was allegedly raped on the couch – an accusation he has always denied.

“Were you trying to diminish the level of your knowledge by not admitting that you knew security guards had been involved in the incident?” she said.

“I was being honest about what I recollected at the time,” Reynolds said.

She agreed she had been “partially wrong” when she denied knowing the ministerial suite was steam-cleaned.

“When you gave that evidence before the ACT Supreme Court, you knew that if you indicated knowledge of the cleaning that it would suggest that you knew that something untoward had happened,” Young said.

“Absolutely not,” Reynolds said.

The court was told Reynolds has settled five defamation actions since Higgins’ alleged rape. The parties involved include the ACT government, publisher Harper Collins, author and journalist Aaron Patrick, and media outlets The Independent and The Spectator.

The trial continues.

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National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

– AAP