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#AceBreakingNews – The case of a former political adviser accused of raping a colleague inside Australia’s Parliament House has been aborted after juror “misconduct”.

By Simon Atkinson in Canberra and Shaimaa Khalil in Sydney: BBC News

Bruce Lehrmann, 27, denies sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins on a government minister’s sofa after a night out in Canberra in 2019………….He says they did not have sex at all.

But after a 12-day trial and five days of deliberation the jury was discharged when it emerged one member had looked at academic research on sexual assault.

Juries are required to reach a verdict only on evidence presented in the courtroom. 

The research was discovered by a court official during “routine tidying” of the jury room, Justice Lucy McCallum told a court.

“It may be that no harm has been done, but that is not a risk I can take,” the judge said, adding she had previously warned the jury at least 17 times.

It is not yet clear if there will be a retrial, but Justice McCallum set aside a date in February in the event one goes ahead.

Before giving her account to police in early 2021, Ms Higgins gave up her right to anonymity and went public with her claims in high-profile newspaper and television interviews.

Her allegations were a catalyst for what’s been called Australia’s “Me Too moment”, sparking huge protests over the safety of women, particularly in politics.

Speaking outside court on Thursday, Ms Higgins criticised the justice system and said the trial had taken a toll.

“I told the truth, no matter how uncomfortable or unflattering, to the court,” she said. “My life has been publicly scrutinised, open for the world to see.”

Mr Lehrmann’s legal team said they were disappointed by the outcome, but said it would be inappropriate to comment further. 

They also argued “a pre-prepared speech” by Ms Higgins outside court could prejudice a future retrial, saying they had referred it to police and the court for investigation.

The trial heard that Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins worked in the same office – for then-Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds. On 22 March 2019 they both had drinks with colleagues and others.

Ms Higgins said she was the most intoxicated she had been in her life, after spending hours at two Canberra bars, before the pair shared a cab to Parliament House, the jury was told.

Ms Higgins says she fell asleep on a sofa in Ms Reynolds’s office and woke to find Mr Lehrmann having sex with her. 

In a police interview played to the jury, she said she had cried while telling Mr Lehrmann “stop” and “no”.

She reported the alleged rape to police in the days afterwards but then did not proceed with her complaint because she was afraid she might lose her job, the jury heard.

Mr Lehrmann chose not to give evidence, but in a police interview that was played to the court said what was alleged “simply didn’t happen”.

His lawyer, Steven Whybrow, argued parts of Ms Higgins’ evidence were “totally and utterly inconsistent”.

“We can’t be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that she knows what happened,” he said.

The aborting of the trial comes two days after jurors told the court they had been unable to reach a unanimous decision but were asked by the judge to try again.

The prosecution and defence teams are yet to make arguments about whether the case should be retried.

If a retrial in February goes ahead, it will mark two years since Ms Higgins first went public with her allegations.

Her interviews last year reignited – yet again – criticisms of Australian politics as a hostile workplace.

It also sparked massive protests last year when more than 100,000 people gathered in towns and cities across Australia to voice their fury about sexism, misogyny and abuse in society.

It also led to a damning review which found that a third of employees in federal parliament had been sexually harassed. 

There had been concerns that Mr Lehrmann might not get a fair trial because of the publicity, but an earlier application for it to be thrown out was rejected.

What the jury heard in court before it was discharged in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann according to ABC News report

The jury in the trial of alleged rapist Bruce Lehrmann has been discharged, but in the mistrial’s wake remains a little over two weeks of hearings and testimony.

Mr Lehrmann was charged with the rape of his then-colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House after a night out drinking in March 2019.

He pleaded not guilty and said no sexual activity occurred between the pair.

This morning, the jury that had been deliberating for a week was discharged, after a juror accessed information that had not been presented as evidence.

Here is the evidence the jury heard in court.

Higgins took to the stand, Lehrmann did not

Throughout her three days in the witness box, Ms Higgins’s testimony became emotional and at times, heated.

She chose to appear in court to testify, rather than from a remote witness room, and at one stage directly addressed Mr Lehrmann in the courtroom.

“Nothing was fine after what you did to me — nothing,” she alleged.

Mr Lehrmann’s voice was also heard by the jury, but he did not speak in court.

The law provides that defendants in a criminal trial have the option to exercise their right to silence, which means they do not have to appear as a witness.

Instead, Mr Lehrmann’s first interview with police, taken in 2021, was played to the court, in which he told police he wanted to die after he heard about the allegations.

“Oh, I — I was ready to go,” Mr Lehrmann said. 

But, without testimony from Mr Lehrmann in court, the spotlight fell on his accuser, Ms Higgins, as both sides worked to expose what they alleged were inconsistencies in the other’s accounts.

Three different reasons

Bruce Lehrmann’s police interview was played to the court, in which he denied having sexual intercourse with Ms Higgins.(AAP: Lukas Coch)none

Prosecutors questioned what led the pair to return to Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

They alleged Mr Lehrmann provided three different reasons for why he and Ms Higgins had gone to Parliament House on the night of the alleged assault.

In his interview with police in 2021, Mr Lehrmann told them his intention for returning to Parliament House was to collect his keys – and once in the office, he said he had completed some paperwork before leaving.

“My intention hadn’t been to have a big night, so I acted normally — like, my intention was to return [to Parliament House],” Mr Lehrmann told police.

The court also viewed CCTV footage of Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins going through the security checkpoint, in which the prosecution alleged Mr Lehrmann could be seen only picking up a mobile phone.

The court was then played a recording of Mr Lehrmann telling parliamentary security via an intercom that the pair were there to pick up “documents”.

“Oh, hi, mate. Bruce Lehrmann here with Minister Linda Reynolds. We’ve been requested to pick up some documents — I’ve forgotten my pass.”

But the prosecution alleged CCTV footage showed neither Mr Lehrmann nor Ms Higgins carrying documents when they left the building.

The court also heard Mr Lehrmann was called into a meeting with his chief-of-staff Fiona Brown in the days following the alleged incident.

She said in her evidence that he told her he had gone to Parliament House to drink whisky.

A former colleague noted to the court that Mr Lehrmann had always kept a variety of alcoholic beverages in the office.

But Mr Lehrmann told police that while it was “common practice” for staff to go to Parliament House after hours to drink, he did not drink while there that evening and did not have any alcohol in the office.The prosecution alleged Bruce Lehrmann provided three different reasons for entering Parliament House. (ABC News: Donal Sheil)none

‘Untouched and uncleaned’

Defence lawyers pressed Ms Higgins on alleged inconsistencies in testimony given around the dress she was wearing on the night of the alleged assault.

A Parliament House security guard who conducted a welfare check in Senator Reynolds’s suite after Mr Lehrmann left the building gave evidence that when she opened the door to the minister’s office, Ms Higgins was lying naked on the couch with clothing on the floor next to her.

Ms Anderson said Ms Higgins rolled over into the foetal position before she closed the door.

But Ms Higgins said she thought the dress she had been wearing that night was bunched up around her waist and did not recall having to get dressed when she came to in the office later that morning.

Ms Higgins told the court she had kept the dress in a bag under her bed “untouched” and “uncleaned” for around six months before washing and wearing it.

“I very symbolically washed the dress and I wore it once more, and then I’ve never worn it since,” Ms Higgins said.

But during cross-examination, defence lawyer Steven Whybrow showed the court a photo of Ms Higgins wearing the dress the month following the alleged rape, at a Liberal Party event in Perth.

Ms Higgins conceded she was mistaken about the length of time the dress was left under her bed.A Parliament House security guard testified that after Mr Lehrmann left the building she opened the door to the minister’s office and found Ms Higgins lying naked on the couch.(AAP: Lukas Coch)none

The doctor and the cleaner

The court heard Ms Higgins told police she went to see a doctor within two weeks of the alleged rape and was awaiting test results.

However, she told the court she had not visited a doctor in the weeks following the alleged assault.

“I continued to make appointments,” she said.

“I had the intention of going but I was so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed.

“Going and confronting it with a health professional was a really big f***ing deal for me.

“I was in such a weird depressive state where I would have all this intention to go out and do all these active things to look after myself like go to the doctors.

“I was just so broken that I couldn’t leave the confines of my room.

“I tried to power through it like nothing had happened, but I just couldn’t.”

Defence lawyers for Mr Lehrmann suggested Ms Higgins had told police she went to the doctor to make her story more believable, which she disagreed with.

In her evidence, Ms Higgins said she had vomited in the minister’s toilet in the morning after the alleged assault.

Parliament House cleaner Carlos Ramos told the court he had been called in to do an out-of-hours clean on the same day – and was told to look for signs of a “party”.

Mr Ramos said the office only appeared to require a “normal” clean, he found no evidence the bathroom had been used.

He said he used a chemical to clean the couch in Senator Reynolds’s office as part of the standard cleaning procedure.

The senators, the witnesses 

Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash appeared as a witness in the Bruce Lehrmann trial.(ABC News: Keane Bourke)none

Various politicians were also called by prosecuting lawyers to give evidence throughout the case.

When Senator Michaelia Cash appeared as a witness, she said she did not know about the “sexual nature” of Ms Higgins’s alleged assault until February 2021 and rejected that it was politically embarrassing.

“Absolutely not — I don’t know how it could be politically embarrassing,” she responded.

Senator Linda Reynolds also appeared in court, revealing she asked the defence for transcripts of Ms Higgins’s evidence, and that her partner had sat in court during Ms Higgins’s testimony. 

Senator Reynolds told the court she had not asked her partner to tell her what was said in court.

“I wanted to know what had been said but my lawyer advised against it,” she said.

Senator Reynolds rejected any claims that she was concerned about the political repercussions of Ms Higgins’s alleged rape in Parliament House becoming public.

Other witnesses testified that Ms Higgins did tell them about the alleged rape soon after it happened, including a man who worked in her office, and the Member for Bonney, Sam O’Connor, who urged her to go to the police.

“I think she described it as a ‘super f***ed up thing that happened’,” Mr O’Connor said.

Mr O’Connor said he was “very angry” after Ms Higgins told him her version of events.

Christopher Payne, a public servant who worked in Senator Reynolds’s office said Ms Higgins told her about the alleged assault the following week.

“I recall saying ‘do you mind if I ask you a very direct question?’ and I said ‘did he rape you?’ and she said ‘I could not have consented – it would have been like f***ing a log’ and at that point, she was then very upset,” Mr Payne said. 

The court heard that Ms Higgins also reported her alleged assault to the Australian Federal Police unit inside Parliament House.

But ultimately, Ms Higgins told the court, the delay in pursuing a police complaint came from a fear her career was at risk.

A new trial date for Mr Lehrmann has been set for February 20, 2023.

BBC NEWS/ ABC NEWS/ Additional reporting by Tiffanie Turnbull in Sydney

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