Bruce Lehrmann makes last-ditch legal effort to appeal rape finding | Australia news
Bruce Lehrmann has made a last-ditch effort to clear his name from findings that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
The alleged incident led to more than a dozen legal cases.
In documents submitted to the high court, Lehrmann’s legal team argued that the initial findings against him were “dangerous” and that the federal court’s decision approving this decision was therefore invalid.
The application for special leave to appeal alleges that federal court judge Michael Lee “improperly” conducted his own research in the initial findings against Lehrmann, meaning both findings should be set aside.
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In 2021, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins told Network Ten’s The Project and news.com.au that she was raped on a sofa in Parliament House in 2019.
The name of the alleged rapist has not been released, but Higgins’ then-Liberal colleague Bruce Lehrmann claimed he had been identified.
In 2022, Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent. That criminal trial was thrown out due to juror misconduct and the charges were dropped after prosecutors said a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to Higgins’ health.
In 2023, Lehrmann sued Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson for defamation.
Judge Lee rejected this argument and found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Higgins.
Lee’s colorful 2.5-hour summary of the case described it as “multifaceted.”
Lee thought that Lehrmann did not have “a genuine state of cognitive awareness that Higgins had not consented to sex” at the relevant time.
Lehrmann sought to overturn the defamation verdict in 2024.
But in December last year, a full panel of the federal court rejected Lehrmann’s appeal, arguing that Lee should have found that Lehrmann knew Higgins did not consent to sexual intercourse.
The court heard that Lehrmann was not drunk at the time and knew that Higgins, who was “very drunk, passive and silent”, did not consent.
Lehrmann’s new application argues that the full court erred in relying on findings made by Lee that he was “compromised by the primary judge’s failure to exercise jurisdiction in some aspects of the case by conducting his own investigation and obtaining extra-legal material that was extraneous.”
He argues that Lee should have limited himself to expert material on the agreed facts of the case, but also delved into other academic literature on sexual assault victims.
He emphasizes that Lee referred to Higgins’ “irrational behavior”, saying it was “not inconsistent with the behavior of an actual sexual assault victim struggling to process what happened, trying to cope, and working through her options.”
“Notwithstanding that the primary judge had made contradictory findings, the Full Court went further than even the primary judge himself was prepared to go: real information The application claimed that “Ms. Higgins did not consent to sexual intercourse” and that therefore, the intervention of the high court was necessary, both cases should be dropped and the costs should be covered.
The application also argues for the meaning of the term “rape” and the need for defendants to prove concrete evidence of what they “actually published.”
In the context of the broadcast, it is stated that “the ordinary reasonable viewer would understand ‘rape’ in this context to mean ‘the rape and injuring of an unconscious and subsequently protesting woman.'”
“In other words, it was a rape certain kind” and argues that the verdicts against him “falsely portray the relevant rape the program conveys as any kind of rape.”
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse is available from the following organisations. Support in Australia is available at: 1800Respect (1800 737 732). in the UK, Rape Crisis It offers support on 0808 500 2222. in the USA, rainn Offers support at 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be reached at: ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
