Lehrmann’s explanation ‘seemed off to me’, Fiona Brown says
Chrysanthou, for Wilkinson, has asked Brown about conducting interviews with Lehrmann and Higgins about what had happened when they entered Parliament House after midnight in March 2019.
Chrysanthou asked Brown if she accepted that she should not have conducted the interviews with the two staff members of Senator Reynolds.
Brown disagreed, saying: “It wasn’t considered assault [at that point in time]”.
“It was a staff matter of people coming in after hours,” Brown said, noting she was asked by the department to talk to the pair.
Then Brown was asked about a discussion with the defence department liaison officer Chris Payne about the incident. She said she had raised with him issues from a security point of view, due to the after-hours access.
Payne has given evidence earlier in the trial.
Brown denied telling Payne she was going to access CCTV footage to get to the bottom of the matter.
Brown is then asked about interviewing Lehrmann about the after-hours access.
“I was puzzled,” she said.
Chrysanthou asked Brown if she thought Lehrmann was lying to her when he said he went back there to drink whisky.
Brown said: “I had no reason to think he was lying. I accepted what everyone said to me.”
However, Brown said of Lehrmann’s explanation: “It seemed off to me. One thought I had was had he come back here to access files. My antenna was up.”
