Overview
The Lehrmann-Higgins matter was not finalised by trial after the trial was aborted because of a breach of procedure by a juror.
The actions of Higgins and her partner, Mr Sharaz, by taking the matter to the media and the Labor Party before Higgin’s belated police interview did not endear themselves to the police and many of the public.
Higgin’s now undetermined allegation against Lehrmann has polarised public opinion on Lehrmann’s guilt or otherwise. Because of the need for an analyst to ignore inherent biases and focus only on the language, such an example make a good subject matter to practice Language Analysis.
In this respect, I’ll cover three elements of such analysis: unreliable denials, the use of the word ‘left’ and the definite article ‘the’.
Dealing first with denials
One principle of Language Analysis is based on the premise that we are all psychologically conditioned, starting at an early age, not to tell lies. We may not be aware of it, but it is psychologically troubling to tell a lie. We thus develop ways to overcome the psychological difficulty by using a variety of responses to avoid an outright lie when answering an allegation.
One common recourse is to use future tense: ‘I wouldn’t do something like that’. Another is to answer an accusatory question with a question. Another is to vilify the accuser. Another is to use a phrase like, ‘What I can say is that did not happen’ (they are simply telling you what they can say. Bill Clinton and Joe Biden both use this recourse. By way of a local example, at a Senate estimates enquiry, Prime Minister and Cabinet deputy secretary Stephanie Foster was observed winking. When challenged, she said, ‘I can say categorically I have at no stage intentionally winked at Senator Birmingham. It’s either capturing me with an eye closing or there’s some other reason.’ She later conceded she may have been winking at a colleague who had just joined the table). Another common ploy is to ‘reject’ or ‘deny’ the allegation but not the act. Any such responses – and there are many similar – should be regarded as weak denials.
In contrast, a reliable denial consists of four elements. First, it is ideally made in an open statement and not in response to a direct question: both truthful and deceptive respondents will usually say ‘No’ to a direct accusatory question.
Second, the denial should include the pronoun, ‘I’ which shows the respondent’s attachment and commitment to the denial.
Third, the denial should contain a phrase equalling, or exactly equivalent to, ‘did not’. A Phrase like, ‘I reject the allegation’ does not measure up: the person is merely setting aside the allegation and not denying the act.
Fourth, the respondent should include the description of the act alleged. A good reliable response in an open statement would be, ‘I did not rape Brittany Higgins.’
At Q7 in the police interview of Lehrmann, the interviewer outlined the allegation. Lehrmann responded, ‘Ah, from the outset reject it …’
There is no ‘I’ to demonstrate commitment, and he ‘rejects’ the allegation and not the act.
Unfortunately, from a Language Analysis perspective, the interview did not elicit the denial from an open question. Thus, there was little point for Lehrmann to describe the alleged act.
The interviewer put the allegation to Lehrmann again at Q68. Lehrmann responded, ‘So, obviously I reject that allegation because it simply didn’t happen.’ In this answer, he commits to the answer by using ‘I’, but again, he rejects the allegation and not the alleged act itself. However, he did say, ‘ … because it simply didn’t happen.’ Using ‘it’ instead of describing the alleged act weakens the denial. It would have been very simple to say, ‘I did not rape Brittany Higgins’ if he did not do it.
Moving to the use of ‘left’
At Answer 71, Lehrmann said, ‘ … And Austin and I went to the Kingston Hotel ….’ He used ‘went’.
At A73 he said, “… the Department of Defence were having some drinks down at The Dock and we went down to The Dock.’ He used ‘went’.
At A80 & 81 he said, ‘And we went to – I’ve – um, I have, I really enjoyed 88mph (a nightclub), it’s a favourite of mine … Um, and I was fully aware of what, who I was there with.’ He used ‘went’.
When discussing his departure for 88mph, at A86 & A87 he said, ‘”Well, I’m ordering an Uber, I’ve got to go back there (Parliament House) briefly, you know, you’re happy to stay – you know, it’s fine if you want to share an Uber”. And she indicated she was happy to go back there. So, um, we both hopped in the Uber …’
Lehrmann has set a common linguist pattern of going from one place to another: typically, ‘I went to A. Then I went to B. Then I went to C’.
In contrast, if the subject says, ‘I went to A, I went to C, I left C and went to B’, the use of the word ‘left’ is a strong indication that something occurred at C to focus their mind on a need to leave, and thus ‘left’ enters their language.
At A101, after describing how he and Higgins went to the Minister’s office, he said, ‘Um, and then I ordered myself an Uber. Um, and I left the building through the – through the car park. The Uber indicated that it was here and I went – and I left the building. That’s – that’s how I recall that evening.’
It would have been simple for Lehrman to follow his established pattern and say, ‘I ordered an Uber and went home.’ Something happened to make him twice say he ‘left the building’. Getting out of the building was on his mind. (This unusual claim to have left without saying ‘good bye’ to Higgins, as he claimed, was taken up by the prosecution in the trial).
The use of the definite article ‘the’
The use of the definite article ‘the’ is used before a noun and implies that the nature of the noun is known or a given. ‘I saw the car drive down the street’ implies the narrator had knowledge of that car.
Quoting from an article in The Australian on 9 June 2023, Lehrmann accused Higgin’s partner, David Sharaz, of wishing to weaponise sexual assault to advance the Labor Party, describing him as a ‘class A typical political staffer’.
‘(Seemed) clear that he was there to sell a message and that was the weaponisation of the sexual assault,’ Mr Lehrmann said. ‘It wasn’t about me, it was about a bigger purpose, and clearly it was for the Labor Party. People need to follow the breadcrumbs. Take a deep breath, be pragmatic, and follow the breadcrumbs.’
Lehrmann said ‘ … the sexual assault.’ If there had been no sexual assault, his brain could not have possibly generated ‘the’ but would have relied on a term like ‘an alleged sexual assault’ or even the use of the indefinite article and say, ‘a sexual assault’