When Justice Michael Lee found that Bruce Lehrmann, on the balance of probabilities, raped Brittany Higgins in March 2019, women everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.

Many have watched in horror, for years, as the terrible injustices against Higgins unfolded.

Higgins, who worked in federal parliament for the Liberal Party, claimed she had been raped by Lehrmann in a cabinet minister’s office and that a cover-up had ensued.

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Higgins was driven to the brink of a mental health breakdown, hounded by lurid corporate media coverage, an aborted criminal trial and seemingly endless civil cases.

Higgins may never receive criminal justice, but a civil court judge, at least, vindicated her allegations.

Her relief was palpable when she thanked the judge for “his trauma informed approach”. She said she hoped he had “set a new precedent for how courts consider the testimonies of victim survivors of sexual assault”.

While a change in how courts treat victims of sexual assault would be welcome, this can only ever be part of the reform that is urgently needed.

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