Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann has attended a regional Queensland court for the first time since being charged with rape more than a year ago.
Lehrmann was mobbed by photographers and TV crews on his way into Toowoomba Magistrates Court for a committal hearing on Monday morning.
“Where is Peter Costello when you need him?” Mr Lehrmann said, apparently in reference to the former Nine Entertainment chairman allegedly pushing over a journalist.
Lehrmann was charged in January 2023 and has been on bail since then.
He took a seat behind the bar table and beside his barrister Andrew Hoare with documents and a leather-bound notebook in hand.
Mr Hoare said he intended to question the alleged victim in the case.
The small regional courtroom almost ran out of standing room due to the number of journalists and a court sketch artist in the public gallery.
Lehrmann faces two counts of raping a woman at Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, in October 2021, which his legal team has said he denies.
Lawyers for the 29-year-old had mounted a weeks-long legal effort to maintain Lehrmann’s anonymity after Queensland changed its laws in October 2023 to no longer ban the publication of the names of people charged with certain sex offences prior to facing trial.
Lehrmann was able to be identified after being denied an ongoing non-publication of his identity by the Queensland Supreme Court.
The former federal Liberal staffer was the subject of national media attention after being charged with the rape of Brittany Higgins, in the office of then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds at Parliament House in March 2019, while both were employed by the senator.
Lehrmann denied those allegations and the case ended in a mistrial with prosecutors withdrawing the charge and declining to proceed with a new trial out of concern for Ms Higgins’ mental health.
Lehrmann in November 2023 started defamation proceedings against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over claims The Project program had identified him as the person who raped Ms Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
Justice Michael Lee in April 2024 found to the civil standard that Mr Lehrmann did, on the balance of probabilities, rape Ms Higgins and dismissed his lawsuit.
Lehrmann filed an appeal against Justice Lee’s trial judgment in May 2024.
The owner of a north Sydney home Lehrmann previously leased has filed a NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal claim against him for $13,000 for alleged property damage and lost rent.
Lehrmann occupied the property for 12 months at an estimated cost of $100,000 paid for by the Seven Network in return for an exclusive interview.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
