Defence bids for Brittany Higgins material

Lawyers for the man accused of raping Brittany Higgins are seeking access to a document detailing the alleged victim’s version of events and ‘subsequent discrepancies’.

Brittany Higgins. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Lawyers for the man accused of raping Brittany Higgins are seeking access to a document detailing the alleged victim’s version of events and “subsequent discrepancies”.

Bruce Lehrmann’s defence team is also seeking a full, unredacted report about material extracted from Ms Higgins’ mobile phone before their client’s rape trial starts next month.

A pre-trial hearing in the ACT Supreme Court today heard that there are currently two categories of evidence in dispute between the parties.

The first is related to legal professional privilege over a document that was described as outlining Ms Higgins’ version of events during the course of her engagements with police in 2019 “against the available evidence and subsequent discrepancies”.

The document was originally expected to be available on request from the Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold, but he had objected on the grounds it is privileged material.

Lehrmann’s counsel Andrew Berger contested that assertion and said the document “doesn’t properly attract” legal professional privilege. Mr Lehrmann’s team will now subpoena the AFP to obtain a copy.

“The AFP can decide whether it wishes to maintain a claim of privilege over that document and if so, put on evidence its reasons to justify that claim,” Mr Berger said.

If the AFP maintains a claim of privilege and the defence does not accept that claim, the judge will decide the matter.

ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum warned she did not want anything to interfere with the trial starting on October 4.

“I need to be careful to think about these issues carefully and listen to you rather than railing with every fibre in my body against anything that might kybosh the hearing date,” she said.

“I want to keep it moving because I want your client to have any material he is entitled to as quickly as possible.”

Ms Higgins alleges Mr Lehrmann raped her inside Senator Linda Reynolds’ office at Parliament House in March 2019.

The 27-year-old was charged last year with sexual intercourse without consent and has since pleaded not guilty.

Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow is also seeking an unredacted version of a report detailing the contents of Ms Higgins mobile phone.

The DPP has appointed barrister Keegan Lee to work through the 56,000-page Cellebrite report to determine which “documents or categories of documents” from the phone might be disclosable.

“I have not been provided with a full Cellebrite extraction from Ms Higgins’ phone so the report refers to items and documents,” Mr Lee said.

“I’ve asked the director to provide me with the full Cellebrite extraction. I’m told it’s some huge amount of material and it was being copied yesterday but by the end of the day it was still being copied.”

The defence is seeking a copy of the “full Cellebrite extraction” because it believes “there is material that could possibly be relevant to issues in the case”.

Justice McCallum said she was concerned about the “breadth of this exercise”.

“It is my primary function is to ensure Mr Lehrmann and the crown and director have a fair trial but secondarily, I’m not going to let cross examination go uphill and down dale for weeks upon weeks,” she said.

The matter was set down for another pre-trial mention on Wednesday.