The reason Brittany Higgins was thrown into a political and media firestorm after her rape was, in part, because her now-husband David Sharaz helped her get there.  

But you wouldn't know that if you watched Silenced, the new documentary about the blight that is violence against women, and how some abusers use the law to evade responsibility.

Before I launch into it, the film - currently doing the rounds at international film festivals including the Sydney Film Festival, and not yet available to the general public - is as poignant as the critics describe.

Higgins is one of several case studies in Silenced. Despite the title, she never actually says she was 'silenced', which is good because - as her former boss Linda Reynolds will tell you - she wasn't.

She has been vocal about her rape in Parliament House since 2021, when she spoke about it publicly for the first time in a prime-time TV interview with Network Ten. Six years later, the way she describes her assault has barely changed.

I would know because I have covered every legal iteration of the saga since it began. I've been in the courtroom on several occasions when she's retold her story, and when she's been cross-examined on it.

Her pain is always transparent. Her frankness is always disarming. Her interview in this film is no different.

But what struck me about her story this time around was how Sharaz - once described by a Federal Court judge as having reinforced a 'conspiratorial' theme around his wife's rape - continues to escape responsibility for his role in the saga.

It feels misplaced to focus on a man in a female-centric story, but it would be disingenuous to ignore how Higgins airbrushes her husband's actions out of a film about the lengths men go to protect their reputations.

I don't suggest this is intentional on Higgins' part.

In short, Sharaz comes across as the ever-supportive husband who selflessly uproots his life for Higgins' safety, rather than a key architect of her years-long public battle in the media.

It's baffling that he comes across this way because he's barely shown in the film.  Sharaz is constantly referenced in Higgins' descriptions and retelling, but remains out of actual sight.

If you go by Higgins' interview in Silenced, she planned to tell her rape story once on TV, without naming her rapist. She was then going to make a formal police complaint and get back to her life, but she was blindsided when the story 'blew up'. That much is true. It's also only half the story.

What she didn't say was that Sharaz orchestrated the television interview and that his initial email to Network Ten focused more on causing as much damage to the former Coalition government as possible.

In that email, he immediately advanced bizarre conspiracies about how the Coalition was spying on Higgins, hacking her phone, and actively trying to stop her from making her rape complaint.

All this was tendered as evidence in Bruce Lehrmann's defamation case against Network Ten in 2023. 

The email was titled 'Me Too, Liberal Party, Project Pitch'. Sharaz wrote: 'I've got a sensitive story surrounding a sexual assault at Parliament House; a woman who was pressured by the Liberal Party and female cabinet minister not to pursue it.' 

In a second email, he wrote: 'I'm sending this on behalf of Britt, purely because, and this sounds paranoid, we just don't know who might be keeping a close eye on her.'

Aside from the actual assault, none of this was true. The court found Higgins wasn't pressured into not reporting her assault and no one was spying on her. 

Ahead of TV broadcast, Sharaz started backgrounding press gallery journalists and 'friendly' Labor politicians because he wanted to create a political mess for the then-Morrison government.

Sharaz distributed a timeline of Higgins' assault to the Canberra press gallery, but Higgins wasn't involved in that part because, by her own admission, she was 'passed out' on Valium at the time.

He knew exactly what he was doing. He used to be a press gallery journalist.

In his judgment, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee directly called Sharaz out as the inventor of the political cover-up conspiracy. This was traversed under the subheading: 'The development of the cover-up narrative.'

He found: 'Any journalist who did not think [he] had a motivation to inflict immediate political damage would have to be willfully blind.'

This is important because these conspiracies were aired on The Project and eventually led to a public probe into the way Higgins' rape complaint was handled by authorities.

That hearing was devastating for the careers of the former ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, and the judge who presided over the public probe, Walter Sofronoff.

Network Ten was also forced to defend the cover-up claims in court. The cover-up claims also led Linda Reynolds to successfully sue and bankrupt Higgins and Sharaz, who wrongly claimed she was complicit.

You have to wonder how things might have been different for Higgins, Reynolds, Network Ten and former TV host Lisa Wilkinson, Drumgold, Sofronoff, the former Morrison government, and Sharaz himself if the cover-up claims were never made.

Needless to say, this is not canvassed in Silenced.

In the film, Higgins also said moving to France was Sharaz's idea. 'My husband said, 'We can't do this, let's go somewhere else and start again',' she recalled.

Higgins then talked about how the media 'stalked' her after they moved abroad. She felt sad that some journalists turned up in the small town of Lunas.

What she didn't say was that the media found their place because Sharaz wrote on a public Facebook page: 'We're in Lunas.'

Confronting a journalist in a carpark on camera, Sharaz said: 'I'm trying to get my partner away from all this.'

The journalist replied: 'Well, you've picked the most beautiful spot.' 

Perhaps what she should have said was: 'Then why did you write it on Facebook? Why did you contact journalists about your wife's rape? Why did you organise her publicity?'

Another home video featured in the documentary was filmed by Sharaz, just after Higgins tried to take her own life during Lehrmann's criminal trial in 2022.

In that clip, Higgins could be seen sitting up in a hospital bed and holding a Biscoff wrapper. Ever the caring and supportive partner, Sharaz asked: 'How are you feeling, baby?'

Higgins replied: 'Better than I have all week.'

At this point, it's important to add that Lehrmann's criminal case was heard in the ACT Supreme Court. In the ACT, alleged victims of sexual assault have the right to anonymity.

Higgins decided to waive that right in 2022 because she had already told her story on television. If she hadn't appeared on television, she could have remained anonymous throughout the legal process.

Her story has always been compelling, and she managed to communicate her ordeal in Silenced with a mature brevity that I hadn't seen before.

She was never going to throw Sharaz under the bus or blame him for his blunders. As it stands, every time someone suggests he may have been at fault, she publicly jumps to his defence, and he attacks whoever said it.

Her reaction also isn't surprising - his love for her is undeniable, and he has been there for her during some very dark times.

But that doesn't mean she bears all the responsibility for the way her situation has unfolded.

The judge in Lehrmann's defamation trial probably said it best when he compared Sharaz to the biblical prophet Elijah: 'There's a place for him at the Passover table, but he never turns up.'

He was baffled that Sharaz had such an influence on Higgins' story, and the court cases that followed, but was never called to give evidence in court.

It's astounding that, three years after the observation was made, Sharaz still remains the invisible figure in the drama.