Bruce Lehrmann and the Toowoomba rape case that puts him back in court

It was in early 2021 that Bruce Lehrmann left Sydney, bound for his home state of Queensland.

He had just been discharged from a private mental health clinic after a stay at nearby Royal North Shore Hospital. His treating psychiatrist told him he was fine to leave so long as he went into the care of a psychologist in Queensland.

Lehrmann had, as he described it, “completely spiralled”. There were a growing number of reports about a federal Liberal staffer, Brittany Higgins, being raped in Parliament House two years earlier. Lehrmann had worked with Higgins, and was known to have socialised with her, but had since taken a job in the private sector after being sacked over security breaches.

The night before Lehrmann was admitted to hospital, Higgins appeared on national television to tell her story. In an interview with Lisa Wilkinson on Network Ten’s The Project, Higgins told of passing out in a ministerial office after a night out and being raped by a “rising star” in the party.

“I woke up mid-rape, essentially. I don’t know why I knew he was almost finished, but I felt like it had been going on for a while or that he was almost done,” Higgins said.

“He was sweaty, I couldn’t get him off of me. At this point I started crying.”

Higgins did not name Lehrmann, and it would be some months before he was charged with raping her. Text messages tendered as evidence in a subsequent civil case show that, while he was in hospital, Lehrmann became increasingly concerned he would be outed.

Even Lehrmann’s mother had seen The Project and called the 26-year-old to ask if he had worked with Higgins. At the time, according to her son, he was in the emergency department, suicidal, and she was at home in Toowoomba. The next day, she was by his side in Sydney, where she remained while he underwent treatment amid a barrage of calls from journalists.

A month later, in March, Lehrmann moved back to his hometown of Toowoomba to live with his mother for a while. It was there, a world away from the political bubble, that he was meant to recuperate while the Higgins matter consumed Canberra. But, in the spring of that year, as Toowoomba emerged from another cold winter, Lehrmann felt even more heat.

Toowoomba is Australia’s second most populous inland city after Canberra, and known for its annual Carnival of Flowers.

By the time Lehrmann was known publicly as Higgins’ alleged rapist, and facing a charge in Canberra, another case had emerged closer to home. In November 2021, Queensland police took a formal complaint from a woman who told them Lehrmann had raped her in Toowoomba the month before.

Initially, his identity was kept secret, as it was in the Higgins case. Now, the cases are indelibly entwined.

On Monday, Lehrmann is due in court in Toowoomba – the city meant to have been his psychological sanctuary – for a committal hearing that will decide whether he will again stand trial for rape.

In the Higgins case, Lehrmann faced a maximum 12 years’ jail. In this case, under Queensland law, the maximum penalty is life in prison.

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After moving back to Toowoomba in 2021, and taking leave from his lobbying job, Lehrmann was visiting Sydney again when his mother called.

“The AFP have been to the house wanting to speak with you. They said they don’t want to arrest you under any circumstances. They just want to chat about the allegations by Ms Higgins,” his mother told him, he swore in an affidavit.

Lehrmann grew up in Toowoomba, but he was born in Texas in the United States. His father died when he was 17 months old, prompting his mother to move him and his younger sister back to Australia. After finishing school, he moved to Canberra for university and the start of what he hoped would be a long career in conservative politics.

CCTV footage of Bruce Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins at Parliament House on the night of the alleged rape.

Police were formally investigating the alleged rape in Parliament House. Lehrmann had proclaimed his innocence, and hoped it would not affect his work and reputation. He told his then employer, British American Tobacco, that he had been “well supported medically and otherwise from my mum’s home in Toowoomba” and hoped to return to work remotely.

But journalists were already asking the tobacco company about Lehrmann, and his position became untenable. By August, he was known publicly as the man charged with raping Higgins after a night out in Canberra.

Unemployed, and unable to avoid the public spotlight, Lehrmann remained in Toowoomba, taking only occasional interstate trips when allowed under Queensland’s COVID-19 rules.

On October 10, 2021, Lehrmann is alleged to have raped a woman in Toowoomba, twice in a matter of hours. The specifics have not been aired in court, but it is known to centre on a night out in Toowoomba and the morning after, involving two people not previously known to each other.

The woman told Queensland police she had read about Lehrmann online in the weeks after the incident. She told police they initially had consensual sex, but that Lehrmann later removed a condom without her permission and raped her twice.

She complained to police in November 2021, the very month Lehrmann was committed to stand trial in Canberra over the allegation he raped Higgins.

More than two years had passed since the alleged rape in Parliament House, and it would be almost another two years before Lehrmann’s name would be connected with the Toowoomba case.

He has enlisted barristers to fight the charges.

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By the time the Canberra trial began in October 2022, Lehrmann was showing signs of desperation. Concerned with his public image, and his future, Lehrmann told Channel Seven’s Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach he would give a blockbuster interview if they could agree on terms.

There would be no shortage of headlines. Within weeks, the Canberra trial was aborted because of juror misconduct. Auerbach claimed in a subsequent civil case that, in the period that followed, he and Lehrmann continued to discuss a potential Spotlight interview.

Seven spared no expense in trying to secure the story. In November that year, according to Auerbach, they paid more than $10,000 for Lehrmann to have a Sensai Thai massage in Sydney.

On December 2, the charge against Lehrmann in Canberra was sensationally dropped. The prosecution decided not to proceed with a second trial because of concerns about Higgins’ mental health.

Again, it was front-page news. And Seven still wanted to get Lehrmann on camera, that day flying him from Hobart to Sydney, Sydney to Canberra, and back to Sydney for a night and more conversations.

A week later, on December 9, Queensland police issued Lehrmann with a notice to appear in court on two counts of rape in Toowoomba.

Under Queensland law at the time, accused sex offenders could not be identified before being committed to stand trial, but before long, the media would be reporting on a “high-profile man” being at the centre of the case.

That December had started with Lehrmann’s criminal charge in Canberra being dropped. It would end with his solicitors serving Ten and Wilkinson with a concerns notice over the interview with Higgins on The Project.

While Lehrmann had not been named in the interview, he said he had been identified to colleagues and deserved $235,000 in damages for defamation. After all, he had never been found guilty of the rape.

In the weeks that followed, Lehrmann continued to meet with Seven. Evidence tendered to the Federal Court as part of the Ten case shows he enjoyed more flights, golf days, lunches and dinners.

By January 2023, Lehrmann was back in Sydney at Seven’s expense. It was the beginning of a “bender” in which Auerbach alleged Lehrmann obtained illicit drugs and prostitutes.

At one point, Auerbach texted his boss that Lehrmann was “on the war path again”. It was just days before January 11, when the Toowoomba case was first mentioned in court.

Texts between members of Seven’s Spotlight team suggest that court mention was when they first became aware Lehrmann had again been charged with rape.

Lehrmann’s defamation battle against Ten and Wilkinson continued, while Seven showed him every hospitality. It later emerged the unemployed staffer-turned-lobbyist enjoyed everything from a $361 steak to free accommodation, all of which Seven covered at a cost of more than $100,000.

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The Toowoomba charges did nothing to dissuade Seven from its efforts to get Lehrmann on camera to tell his story. Eventually, he agreed to an interview.

In the Spotlight interview, Lehrmann began by saying “let’s light some fires”. Seven had so much content it aired two separate segments in June and August that year.

Those interviews, along with another that aired on Sky News in August, would become central to a court’s decision to strip Lehrmann of his anonymity in the Toowoomba case.

In the background, his lawyers had spent months fighting with the media in Queensland to keep his name out of articles about the “high-profile man” in Toowoomba charged with rape.

It would become more difficult when the Queensland government moved to change the law to allow alleged sex offenders to be named before being committed to stand trial.

While the law change did not specifically target Lehrmann, his lawyers sought to convince a judge he warranted ongoing anonymity because of his poor mental health and the fact the Higgins matter could prove prejudicial.

Lehrmann had kept in contact with a psychologist, about his depression and the pressure of legal cases and, according to the psychologist, his “insecure housing and financial strain”. But his treatment was largely ad hoc.

Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer, Rowan King, surrounded by media outside Toowoomba Magistrates Court in February 2023.Credit: AAP

Ultimately, Lehrmann’s appearance on Spotlight, and a separate interview on Sky, left him exposed. It also led to questions over his behaviour since the Higgins allegations years earlier.

In October last year, Queensland Supreme Court judge Peter Applegarth allowed Lehrmann to be identified as the alleged Toowoomba rapist.

Responding to the submission from Lehrmann’s lawyers over their client’s mental health, Applegarth pointed out Lehrmann had not engaged the services of a local GP nor sought or obtained medication to treat his psychological state.

“Rather than lower his public profile and retreat from the media spotlight, [Lehrmann] chose for whatever reason to appear more than once on national television and revisit events that had triggered his mental illness in early 2021,” Applegarth wrote.

As the Toowoomba case continued in the public eye, Lehrmann persevered with his defamation claim against Ten and Wilkinson. Again, his own actions would bring his downfall.

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee, presiding over that high-stakes defamation case, ruled that, on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann had raped Higgins. Lee remarked: “Having escaped the lions’ den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat” – a reference to Lehrmann’s willingness to undergo more scrutiny after the Canberra case collapsed in 2022.

While Lehrmann recently lodged an appeal in the civil case, the man Higgins described as a “rising star” in conservative politics remains unemployed and has mounting expenses.

Queensland prosecutors have also been poring over thousands of pages of the complainant’s mobile phone records, including any contact with Lehrmann, around the time of the alleged Toowoomba rape.

On Monday, two days after his 29th birthday, Lehrmann will again be making headlines as his lawyers argue to avoid a rape trial that could result in him being sent to jail.

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.