Bruce Lehrmann named as high-profile Qld man charged with rape
Bruce Lehrmann has been identified as the “high-profile Toowoomba man” charged with two counts of rape involving a different woman.
Police & Courts
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Former Coalition staffer Bruce Lehrmann is facing fresh allegations of rape, almost one year after a charge alleging he sexually assaulted Brittany Higgins in Parliament House was dropped.
The Courier-Mail can now reveal Lehrmann is the “high-profile Toowoomba man” charged with two counts of rape involving a different woman after he lost a bid to suppress his identity.
EXCLUSIVE INSIDE STORY: LEHRMANN’S FAILED BID TO STAY ANONYMOUS
Lehrmann was first issued a notice to appear in December last year but his identity could not be revealed due to legislation preventing those accused of serious sexual offences from being named until they had been committed to stand trial.
The fresh charges brought by Queensland Police relate to allegations Lehrmann raped a young woman he met at a Toowoomba strip club on October 9, 2021. Both were customers at the club. Lehrmann is expected to defend the charges.
The incident is alleged to have happened two months after Lehrmann was first identified by mainstream media outlets as the man accused of, and subsequently charged by Federal Police, with assaulting Ms Higgins.
Police will allege Lehrmann gave the new complainant in Queensland a fake name and they later went home together.
She allegedly told police they were kissing in bed and she asked him to put a condom on. Police will allege her next memory was of being shaken awake by Lehrmann who was allegedly naked and penetrating her with his penis.
He allegedly told her they’d had sex throughout the night and that he’d ejaculated inside her.
The law protecting the identity of accused sex offenders was abolished at midnight on October 3 but Lehrmann still could not be identified after he secured interim non-publication orders, first in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday, September 29 and in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Thursday, October 5.
After a further hearing on Friday, October 13, Magistrate Clare Kelly dismissed Lehrmann’s application for a non-publication order.
But he immediately was granted a further interim order to allow him to apply for a judicial review in a higher court.
Lehrmann’s lawyers had argued he should not be identified, tendering a psychologist’s report that opined he would be at a greater risk of self-harm or suicide if the rape charges were made public, and submitting it was necessary to prevent prejudice to the proper administration of justice.
The Director of Public Prosecutions and lawyers for media entities opposed the application, arguing the complainant herself wanted him named and that he would inevitably be able to be identified whether the charges were committed to trial or ultimately dropped.
“The defendant has no automatic right to protection, open justice has been restored and a defendant must provide an extraordinary justification for a departure from that,” barrister Rob Anderson KC, representing the media entities, told the court.
He also argued Lehrmann’s participation in national media interviews in recent months concerning the Brittany Higgins matter was at odds with his submissions that media scrutiny would exacerbate his mental health concerns.
In dismissing the application, Magistrate Kelly said Lehrmann had actively placed himself in the public view by participating in those interviews which was “inconsistent” with his assertions about a “relentless” media pursuit of him.
Almost two weeks after Magistrate Kelly delivered her decision, the Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Lehrmann’s appeal.
Justice Peter Applegarth dismissed Lehrmann’s application for a judicial review late Thursday, lifting the last in a series of interim non-publication orders preventing him from being identified.
Outside court, Thomson Geer lawyer Zander Croft, who acted for the media, said the decision was a “fantastic result”.
“It’s important for principles of open justice, it’s important the public knows what’s going on in the courtroom, it keeps the court accountable and the judiciary accountable and issues like these are brought to light,” he said.
“This is a great outcome for these new laws, it brings Queensland into line with pretty much every other jurisdiction in Australia and a consistent national approach to how we report on alleged sexual offences.
“(The decision) should have an impact, people who are charged with serious sexual offences will see how the laws have been decided early on so hopefully it has an impact going forward.”
Lehrmann vigorously denied any wrongdoing in relation to his colleague Brittany Higgins and pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent that was alleged to have been committed in 2019.
His trial and the charge were ultimately abandoned following juror misconduct in October last year.
The case became the focus of an explosive inquiry that found ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC lost objectivity in the prosecution and engaged in “grossly unethical conduct”, prompting his resignation in August this year. Mr Drumgold is appealing those findings.
Lehrmann now finds himself embroiled in another legal fight after Queensland Police charged him with rape in December.
He was issued a notice to appear on two counts of rape in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court in January and his case has been mentioned multiple times since then.
The prosecution will allege the woman told police she was only wearing a bra when she woke up to find Lehrmann allegedly penetrating her and did not remember taking off her clothes or underwear.
Police will allege Lehrmann showed the woman a bag of cocaine he told her he had found in her clothes and they both did a line of the drug on the bedside table.
It’s alleged the woman woke up later when it was daylight and found Lehrmann having sex with her again and that she asked him to stop.
Police will allege Lehrmann told the woman they had sex throughout the night and that he said he had ejaculated inside of her.
The woman told police Lehrmann then drove her to a Toowoomba chemist to purchase the morning after pill and he bought them each a coffee before driving her home.
She said that they continued to speak on social media platform Snapchat in the week after the encounter.
Police will allege while discussing politics with a friend weeks later on November 25, she googled the Brittany Higgins case and saw a photo of Lehrmann, whom she recognised as the man she had gone home with in October.
The next day on November 26, 2021, she made a complaint to police alleging Lehrmann had unprotected sex with her while she was asleep and continued to have sex with her after she told him to stop.
It’s understood that the police case includes CCTV from the club that allegedly shows Lehrmann and the complainant leaving together.
Lehrmann, now aged 28, was issued a notice to appear in December 2022 and faced court for the first time on the charges in January this year.
It is understood that Lehrmann denies the allegations. He has not been required to enter a plea at this stage of proceedings.
The Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce recommended the change to Queensland legislation that prevented defendants charged with rape, attempted rape and sexual assault from being named until they had been committed to stand trial.
Those accused of sexual offences are still able to apply to the courts for non-publication orders.
Lehrmann no longer lives in Toowoomba.
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