What is News Crap Australia playing at by splashing big photos of ex-Morrison Government staffer Brittany Higgins and partner David Sharaz on the front pages of some of its Sunday metro turdbloids?

On Friday the ACT Director of Prosecutions formally announced the decision not to hold a retrial of the rape allegations brought by Ms Higgins against another former Morrison Government staffer, Bruce Lehrmann.

The DPP cited the “compelling evidence” he had received from two independent medical experts about the  “unacceptable and significant risk to the life” of Ms Higgins if a retrial were to proceed.

Ms Higgins later issued a statement through a close friend advising that she was currently in hospital undergoing what we can assume is treatment for mental trauma.

So why would News Crap Australia download happy snaps from the social media account of Mr Sharaz?

Not just one small pic, but several which the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney ran on its front page and in a large story in its early news pages. (main picture)

The Brisbane Sunday Mail ran the pics too. The Adelaide Sunday Mail  also used them although Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun and the Sunday Tasmanian in Hobart didn’t.

But what’s the point of using the pics? Is it an effort to counter the claims that Ms Higgins is not well at the moment? Are they an attempt to suggest she really isn’t in hospital and that she is bright as a button, happy as Larry? That she doesn’t really need nor deserve compensation for what she’s been through? (see next item)

This type of interpretation is assisted by the fact that News Crap Australia provides no explanation in its stories about when the snaps might have been taken or uploaded by Mr Sharaz.

Our MGH teams have no trouble providing the answers. The pics were taken in Brisbane and uploaded by Mr Sharaz three weeks ago.

It’s logical that Ms Higgins’s mental state three weeks ago and today after the no-retrial decision would be vastly different.

In the end News Crap Australia may have only one answer as to why it published the clickbait pics totally devoid of context – because it can.

But by doing so, our MGH researchers believe, it has unfairly and unethically coloured the public’s view of Ms Higgins.

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If you think News Crap Australia’s treatment of Ms Higgins as detailed above is skewed against her, consider this.

The pics of her and her partner accompanied a story outlining how Ms Higgins was contemplating a worker’s compensation bid as well as potential defamation action in the wake of the decision against a retiral.

Yet Mr Lehrmann is also reportedly considering defamation actions and other means to replenish his supposedly barren personal finances.

The supposed moves by Ms Higgins were given prominence while Mr Lehrmann’s plans were outlined in a smaller separate yarn or absorbed into the bigger yarn about Ms Higgins. (below and main picture)

Fair and balanced? Our MGH teams have their own views but will leave our readers to consider the question before making up their minds and, no doubt, reaching the same conclusion.