Bruce Lehrmann seeks judge-only trial for Toowoomba rape charges
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Former Liberal staffer has been indicted over alleged rape in Queensland city in October 2021 and is yet to enter a plea. Bruce Lehrmann will seek a judge-only trial to defend himself against charges of rape, a Toowoomba court has heard. The case against Lehrmann was briefly mentioned in the Toowoomba district court on Thursday after the 29-year-old former Liberal staffer was committed to stand trial on two charges of rape alleged to have occurred to the same woman in October 2021.
The allegations were first aired in the court in January 2023 at which time Lehrmann was referred to in the media as a “high profile” man due to since overturned laws that prevented the naming of accused sex offenders until they were committed to stand trial.
He has not yet entered any pleas to the charges but his legal team has indicated Lehrmann will defend them. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email. Lehrmann was revealed as the accused after his lawyers lost their judicial review of a Toowoomba magistrate’s ruling that he should not be granted a non-publication order to maintain his anonymity in October 2023.
He was committed to stand trial last July, after the failure of his defence team’s argument that there was no case to proceed to trial. Prosecutors and Lehrmann’s defence have agreed that he and the complainant, who cannot legally be named, met at a strip club after both had been drinking alcohol and the complainant had taken cocaine, the court has been told.