Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer claims ‘key words missing’ from alleged rape victim’s phone data | Queensland

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has called for a forensic expert to examine the phone of a woman he is accused of raping because of alleged inconsistencies in prosecution evidence.

Lehrmann, 30, is due to stand trial in the Queensland district court on two counts of rape but has applied for a permanent stay of the case.

Lehmann’s attorney, Zali Burrows, told Judge Dennis Lynch on Monday that a second download of the alleged victim’s phone produced a report that did not match the first.

“Between the first inference and the second inference, some key words in the statement of facts are missing,” Burrows said.

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The court heard it was necessary to extract data from the alleged victim’s phone for a second time because the first copy was lost when the detective’s hard drive failed.

Lehrmann, who is free on bail and has not yet formally entered a plea, is accused of raping a woman twice on the morning of October 10, 2021.

They met the night before at a strip club in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

Lehrmann had previously stated that he would appeal the charges.

Burrows said he approached another judge to force him to submit a second “unredacted” report to police, but was told there was a problem accessing the original encrypted data.

“If this data is lost again, we would like to address this in our application for stay,” he said.

“We want our own independent forensic IT expert to have the opportunity to remove the phone brand new, which will be clearly monitored and inspected by the police.”

Prosecutor Caroline Marco said a copy of the phone data would be received on Monday and should be provided before the weekend.

“Unfortunately, the delay was due to our investigating officer being on leave,” Marco said.

He said prosecutors would resist an application for an independent expert to download data from the alleged victim’s phone.

Lynch said he would wait for the second report on the phone before considering such an application.

Lehrmann was granted bail and the case was adjourned until 17 November.