Bruce Lehrmann’s former lawyer accused then-prime minister Scott Morrison of egregious conduct by apologising to Brittany Higgins in parliament, a move he said implied his client’s guilt and the accuser’s truthfulness and put the prospect of a fair trial at risk.
Morrison apologised to Higgins in the House of Representatives on February 8 “for the terrible things that took place here”. Responding to the first recommendation of the review into parliamentary workplace culture, he said that parliament should have been a place of safety but “turned out to be a nightmare”.
Brittany Higgins watches as Scott Morrison apologises to her in the House of Representatives.Credit:
The apology was among the reasons Lehrmann, a former ministerial staffer, applied in April to have his trial halted indefinitely as his legal team argued he would be unable to get a fair hearing due to the overwhelming publicity.
Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting Higgins in a parliamentary office in the early hours of March 23, 2019 after a night out drinking with colleagues. He denies ever having sex with Higgins.
The contents and outcome of his unsuccessful stay application before ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum had been suppressed until Wednesday afternoon when the court lifted the non-publication order, while the jury continued deliberating in Lehrmann’s criminal trial after five days.
In her published remarks, McCallum said it was submitted by Lehrmann’s then-barrister David Campbell SC that Morrison’s apology “was particularly egregious as it imputed the accused with guilt of the offence or at least implicitly assumed the truthfulness of the complaint”.
“The accused submitted that the effect has been to elevate the complainant to a status she should not have for the purpose of the accused’s trial,” McCallum said in her April 29 judgment. “He submitted that the case is unique because the complainant ‘walks into court with an aura about her’ and that the problem this creates is incurable.”
She said Lehrmann’s barrister also submitted that the “vice of the pre-trial publicity here is its ‘enhancement’ of the complainant”.
“He submitted that this is a case of ‘accuser v accused’ in which the accuser (the complainant) has set out to discuss her accusation with the support and assistance of the media and the backing of famous people including the prime minister,” McCallum said.
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