https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/the-15-minute-hearing-that-changed-the-reporting-of-bruce-lehrmann-s-queensland-rape-trial-20260407-p5zlyr.html?ref=rss
Reporting on Bruce Lehrmannâs Queensland rape case was suppressed for almost three weeks, it can be revealed, in a now-abandoned bid by the former federal Liberal party staffer to keep his name out of the press.
Lehrmannâs case took a twist during a hearing on March 19 in the District Court in Brisbane, where Judge Deborah Richards made an âextraordinaryâ order over the press, after his legal team misinterpreted an earlier order.
This masthead can only now report the hearing, which lasted less than 15 minutes and resulted in media being unable to publish anything on Lehrmannâs entire rape case, including the date of his trial, for almost three weeks.
Lehrmann, who is expected to face trial on November 2, is accused of raping a woman after a drug-fuelled night in a Toowoomba nightclub in 2021.
He was committed to stand trial in 2024, with the Crownâs case that the complainant had not consented to sex without a condom. The woman had testified in earlier court proceedings that she told Lehrmann âstop what you are doingâ and he consoled her throughout, saying âitâs OK, itâs OKâ.
Lehrmann will fight the charges â although he has declined to confirm to the court whether that will be before a jury or if his legal team will make an application for a judge-alone trial, as is their right to do.
Media lawyers for Nine Newspapers, which owns this masthead, News Corp Australia, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation spoke in the brief hearing last month, which related to previous orders that had been made.
Some media outlets, including this masthead, had published a brief update to Lehrmannâs case the afternoon before, detailing upcoming â and routine â court dates.
Lehrmannâs lawyer, Zali Burrows, a high-profile Sydney solicitor who often represents her client remotely in court, told Judge Richards she had interpreted a non-publication order to cover her clientâs entire case.
âMs Burrows,â Richards said. âI think you must have really wanted everything to be a non- publication order from yesterday afternoon.â
Burrows answered: âYes, thatâs how itâs been interpreted.â
Richards ultimately made the call to put a blanket non-publication order on the case until the following Wednesday.
âSo, no publication of anything to do with the Lehrmann trial until thereâs further discussion on Wednesday,â Richards said, advising media organisations they could make submissions on that date.
It was a move described by legal counsel for Nine Newspapers Larina Alick, who appeared on behalf of the media outlets opposing the non-publication order, as extraordinary.
She said there had been publication of Lehrmannâs case in that previous 24 hours â and indeed, for years.
âThere is an element of futility in that order between now and Wednesday,â she told the court in the March hearing.
âIf whatâs being sought is a non-publication order over what occurred in the courtroom yesterday, thatâs a very discrete and confined order that might be appropriate if thatâs whatâs being sought to be suppressed.
âBut if the application is to suppress the entire case from this point in time forwards, thatâs extraordinary, I wouldâve thought.â
The judge responded: âIt may well be extraordinary, I donât know what the application is yet. But I donât see any harm in media not reporting this between Thursday and Wednesday. Itâs less than a week.â
Richards clarified that she did not believe the media had breached any order.
âI think Ms Burrows thought that it was a wider order than it in fact was,â Richards said.
Richards continued: âAs I say, I donât think itâs unreasonable at this stage for there to be no publication between now and Wednesday when the matterâs heard.â
But that period was ultimately extended when Lehrmann failed to file his application documents by March 23, and then failed to meet a second deadline of April 2.
As such, the media remained under a non-publication order until this Tuesday, April 7.
Last Thursday, just one hour before the court closed for the Easter long weekend, Lehrmann abandoned his application to keep the suppression going.
Lawyers for the media outlets asked the judge to make an order in chambers immediately to lift the suppression, but the reporting restrictions were not lifted until Tuesday afternoon.
This allowed the media to report on the case, and Lehrmannâs upcoming dates.
The suppression is not the first in Lehrmannâs case. In the early stages, when Queensland laws changed to allow accused rapists to be named before they were committed to trial, Lehrmannâs lawyers fought for suppression orders to prevent him from being outed as the âhigh-profile man charged with rape in Toowoombaâ.
But Justice Peter Applegarth ultimately ruled in late 2023 that Lehrmann should be identified. His bid to avoid being identified on mental health grounds was undermined by his comments in several national TV interviews, Applegarth found.
#auspol #rape #rapist #BruceLehrmann
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