Tentative date for Lehrmann rape trial revealed
Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann now has a date for his attempt to avoid trial on two counts of rape in Toowoomba that were first heard in court in early 2023.
Former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann’s court bid to avoid facing a rape trial will likely be heard more than three years after the charges were filed.
Lehrmann, 30, is seeking to permanently stay proceedings in the rape case first brought to court in January 2023.
He is accused of raping a woman twice during the morning of October 10, 2021 after a night out in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.
The stay application was briefly mentioned on Monday in the Queensland District Court at Ipswich following months of delays as Lehrmann’s solicitor Zali Burrows sought access to additional material from police.
“On December 3 I intend to give you a hearing date,” Judge Dennis Lynch said.
“It will be in the new year but it will be before myself sitting in Ipswich … sometime in February probably.”
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Judge Lynch set a provisional date for the stay hearing after Ms Burrows said she had been successful in another court application.
Police had “redacted” words from a second download of the alleged victim’s phone and would now provide the full copy, Ms Burrows said.
“We require a couple of weeks to consider this and incorporate it into the stay application,” she said.
District Judge Craig Chowdhury in a judgment handed down on Friday last week ordered prosecutors to hand over the phone download.
The second extraction of data from the complainant’s phone was required as the first copy was lost when a detective’s hard drive malfunctioned, the court was previously told.
The stay application is partly based on claims that evidence of Lehrmann’s innocence was also contained on the now destroyed hard drive.
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Lehrmann, who is on bail and yet to formally enter a plea, previously worked in Canberra’s Parliament House for then Liberal senator and defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.
He was committed in July last year to stand trial on two rape charges following two days of hearings in Toowoomba Magistrates Court into the reliability of the alleged victim’s evidence.
They met during the previous night at a strip club in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.
The woman told police she met Lehrmann and discussed their political beliefs before catching a taxi to his friend’s house, having consensual sex and consuming cocaine about 4am.
The woman said she was woken up about 10am by Lehrmann sexually assaulting her.
Lehrmann previously indicated he would contest the charges.
Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told Judge Lynch the court-ordered copy of the alleged victim’s phone data should soon be available to Ms Burrows.
“We should be able to disclose that material relatively quickly,” Ms Marco said.
“We are communicating with His Honour Judge Chowdhury’s associate because the time and date of the range of messages provided in the judgment does not 100 per cent correspond with our copy of the download.”
Ms Burrows and Ms Marco said they were content with returning to court in December.
Judge Lynch ordered the case next be mentioned on December 3 and continued Lehrmann’s bail.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
