Bruce Lehrmann is facing a criminal trial in the ACT Supreme Court, charged with sexual intercourse without consent.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Closing arguments have concluded in the nearly three-week trial with Lehrmann’s defence lawyer Steven Whybrow referencing a $325,000 book deal Higgins was offered after giving two media interviews about her rape allegation in 2021.

Whybrow said the $325,000 question in the case was whether the jury could accept beyond a reasonable doubt that Lehrmann sexually assaulted Higgins in a ministerial office.

He told the jury there were very few statements Higgins presented as facts that have not been demonstrated to be suspect in the trial.

He said there was no DNA evidence or medical complaints to support Higgins’ version of events, but instead “contemporaneous lies” about visiting a doctor.

Whybrow said if Higgins had convinced herself that she had been raped her emotional demeanour in the witness box may be genuine.

“She has reconstructed events to the point that she now genuinely believes they are true. That doesn’t mean they are true,” he said on Wednesday.

Whybrow used an example of a photograph of a bruise Higgins said she took after the alleged assault.

He said there was no evidence that bruise had anything to do with that night.

“She’s been caught out. Other people have come along and checked … and there’s no evidence of this,” he said.

Prosecutor Shane Drumgold on Tuesday said Higgins had been a credible and honest witness whose version of events that night had not wavered.

Meanwhile, he said Lehrmann had given inconsistent accounts about his reasons for being at parliament on the night of the alleged assault to the security guards, to his boss and to the police.

He suggested Lehrmann’s intent was to go to Parliament House so that he could be alone with the “drunk” and “vulnerable” Higgins.

Drumgold also said after the alleged rape Higgins was caught in the middle of “strong political forces”.

“We say she was right to be scared, she was right to be cautious and she was right to move slowly and carefully,” he said.

But Whybrow told the jury on Wednesday that, other than Higgins, no other witnesses had given evidence about “political forces” at play.

Whybrow finished his closing argument by reminding jurors Lehrmann was entitled to the presumption of innocence.

He said there was no evidence to reach the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Chief Justice Lucy McCallum is expected to give instructions to the jurors before they begin their deliberations.

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