Lehrmann appears in court on rape charges in Queensland

Rex Martinich |
June 17, 2024

Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann appeared in a Queensland regional court for the first time since he was accused of rape over a year ago.

On his way to the Toowoomba District Court for a preliminary investigation on Monday morning, Lehrmann was besieged by photographers and television crews.

“Where is Peter Costello when you need him?” said Mr Lehrmann, apparently referring to the alleged shoving of a journalist by the former chairman of Nine Entertainment.

Lehrmann was charged in January 2023 and has been free on bail since then.

With documents and a leather-bound notebook in his hand, he sat behind the lawyer’s table next to his lawyer, Andrew Hoare.

Mr Hoare said he intended to interview the alleged victim in the case.

In the small courtroom of the district court, there was hardly any standing room left due to the number of journalists and a court cartoonist in the audience gallery.

Lehrmann is accused of twice raping a woman in October 2021 in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, which he denies, according to his lawyers.

The 29-year-old’s lawyers had fought for weeks to preserve Lehrmann’s anonymity after Queensland changed its laws in October 2023 and no longer prohibited the publication of the names of people accused of certain sexual offences before their trial.

Lehrmann was identified after the Queensland Supreme Court prohibited him from continuing to disclose his identity.

The former federal Liberal staffer found herself in the spotlight of national media attention after she was accused of raping Brittany Higgins in then-Defence Minister Linda Reynolds’ office in Parliament House in March 2019, while both were employed by the senator.

Lehrmann denied these allegations and the case ended in a mistrial. Prosecutors dropped the charges and refused a retrial out of concern for Ms. Higgins’ mental health.

In November 2023, Lehrmann launched defamation proceedings against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson for claiming that the show The Project had identified him as the person who raped Ms Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.

In April 2024, Judge Michael Lee concluded under civil law standards that Mr Lehrmann had almost certainly raped Ms Higgins and dismissed the case.

Lehrmann appealed Judge Lee’s ruling in May 2024.

The owner of a house in northern Sydney that Lehrmann had previously rented has filed a $13,000 claim against him in the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Court for alleged property damage and lost rent.

Lehrmann lived in the property for twelve months at an estimated cost of $100,000, which the Seven Network paid him in exchange for an exclusive interview.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse Victim Support and Reparation Service 1800 211 028

AAP