Bruce Lehrmann Makes Final Legal Attempt to Challenge Rape Finding
Bruce Lehrmann has initiated a final legal attempt to exonerate himself from the conclusions indicating that, based on the balance of probabilities, he raped Brittany Higgins at Parliament House in 2019. The alleged event has triggered over a dozen legal actions. In documents submitted to the high court, Lehrmann’s legal counsel contended that the initial findings against him were “compromised,” and consequently, the decision made by the full bench of the federal court reiterating that verdict was also tainted. The petition for special leave to appeal asserts that federal court judge Michael Lee, while making initial findings against Lehrmann, “inappropriately” conducted his own research, suggesting that both findings ought to be annulled. Sign up: AU Breaking News email In 2021, former Liberal staff member Brittany Higgins revealed to Network Ten’s The Project and news.com.au that she had been raped in 2019 while on a couch in Parliament House. The name of the alleged rapist was not disclosed, but Higgins’s colleague Bruce Lehrmann insisted he was identifiable. In 2022, Lehrmann entered a not guilty plea to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent. That criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct, and prosecutors decided to drop the charges, asserting that a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to Higgins’s health. In 2023, Lehrmann filed a defamation lawsuit against Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson. Justice Lee dismissed that lawsuit, finding, on the balance of probabilities, that Lehrmann raped Higgins. Lee’s vivid 2.5-hour summary of the case referred to it as an “omnishambles.” He concluded that Lehrmann did not, at the relevant time, possess “a state of mind of actual cognitive awareness that Higgins did not consent to having sex.” Lehrmann attempted to overturn that 2024 defamation ruling. However, in December of last year, the full bench of the federal court rejected Lehrmann’s appeal, asserting that Lee should have determined that Lehrmann was aware Higgins did not consent to sexual intercourse. The bench stated that Lehrmann was not intoxicated at the time and would have realized that a “very drunk, passive and silent” Higgins was not consenting. Lehrmann’s latest application contends that the full court made an error by relying on findings made by Lee that “were compromised by his having conducted his own research and having obtained extraneous non-legal material, such that there was not an impartial exercise of judicial power by the primary judge in some aspects of the case.” It argues that Lee should have confined himself to expert material found within the agreed facts of the case; however, he also researched other academic material concerning victims of sexual assault. It underscores Lee mentioning Higgins’s “counterintuitive behaviour,” suggesting it was “not inconsistent with the conduct of a genuine victim of sexual assault struggling to process what transpired, attempting to cope and considering her options.” “Despite the primary judge having made flawed findings, the Full Court went further than even the primary judge himself was willing to go: it concluded that the applicant had actual knowledge that Ms. Higgins did not consent to sexual intercourse,” the application claims, asserting that high court intervention is thus necessary, with both cases needing to be dismissed and costs awarded. The application also discusses the meaning of the term “rape” and that defendants are required to establish substantial proof of what they “actually published.” It asserts that, in the publication context, “the ordinary reasonable viewer would have understood ‘rape’ in this context to mean ‘the rape and injury of an unconscious and then protesting woman.’” “In other terms, it was a specific kind of rape,” it states, contending that the judgments against him “incorrectly characterized the relevant rape conveyed by the program as a rape of any kind.” Information and support for those impacted by rape or sexual abuse is accessible through the following organizations. In Australia, support can be reached at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). In the UK, Rape Crisis provides assistance at 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn offers support at 800-656-4673. Additional international helplines can be located at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Published: 2026-01-06 03:04:00
source: www.theguardian.com
