Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has been committed to stand trial on two counts of rape, alleged to have occurred in Toowoomba in October of 2021.
Nearly three weeks after the alleged victim gave her evidence and was cross-examined in a closed courtroom, Magistrate Marc Howden has today found sufficient grounds for Lehrmann to stand trial.
“In my view, when considering the evidence as a whole, it is sufficient at this stage for me to reach a conclusion that a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could return a verdict of guilty,” Magistrate Howden said.
Lehrmann’s defence lawyer, Andrew Hoare KC, argued for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that the evidence was “insufficient to justify committal to trial”. In his submission, Hoare said the young woman at the centre of the allegations had taken cocaine and drunk alcohol before the alleged rapes occurred.
Hoare also revealed that the day after the complaint was made, the complainant sent a text message that read: “Honestly, if I hadn’t found out who he was, I wouldn’t have reported it, I don’t think”.
Lehrmann did not attend the hearing but instead dialled in remotely. He did not enter a plea but has previously indicated he will plead not guilty to the charges laid against him.
The trial is set to be heard at the Toowoomba district court with a date still to be confirmed.
Lehrrmann is known to the world over allegations that he raped former college Brittany Higgins in Parliament House after a night out back in March of 2019. The criminal trial against the 29-year-old was dismissed after juror misconduct, and Lehrmann went on to take legal action against Lisa Wilkinson and Network Ten for the interview in which the allegations were first revealed – despite Higgins not actually naming him in the interview.
In April this year, the defamation trial ended with Justice Michael Lee siding in favour of Network Ten and Wilkinson. At the time, Lee referred to the trial as an “omnishambles” in which Lehrmann told “deliberate lies” and Higgins was “also an unsatisfactory witness” who made claims that were not backed up.
“Only one man and one woman know the truth, with certitude, of what happened,” he said, adding that those two people were, “both, in different ways, unreliable historians”.
Lee declared that, on the basis of probabilities, Lehrmann did rape Higgins in Parliament House on that fateful night in 2019. Lee claimed that Lehrmann was “hellbent on having sex with a woman he found attractive” and was aware that Higgins was intoxicated and, therefore, not in a state to provide consent.
Lehrmann continues to deny all allegations made against him in both cases.
