The defence for the person accused of raping Brittany Higgins will push to be given a doc outlining what it says are “discrepancies” in her account forward of an October trial.
The ACT supreme court docket has listed a trial of as much as seven weeks to start on 4 October after the case was delayed in June on account of considerations public commentary might prejudice potential jurors.
Bruce Lehrmann has pleaded not responsible to sexually assaulting the previous Liberal staffer Higgins at Parliament Home in Canberra in 2019.
On Friday, considered one of Lehrmann’s counsel, Andrew Berger, revealed in a pre-trial listening to that the defence was looking for a doc outlining Higgins’ model of occasions to police from 2019 onwards and “subsequent discrepancies”.
The doc was initially described as obtainable on request from the director of public prosecutions (DPP) however, when Lehrmann’s defence requested for it, the DPP objected on the grounds it was privileged materials that associated to communications between lawyer and shopper.
The DPP mentioned the doc was “inadvertently” not marked as privileged, however Berger submitted it “doesn’t correctly entice privilege” as a result of the explanation the Australian federal police equipped it to the DPP was totally different to the “dominant objective for its creation”.
Berger indicated Lehrmann’s staff would subpoena the AFP for the doc, giving the police a chance to assert privilege over it.
The chief justice, Lucy McCallum, warned she didn’t need the pre-trial points to “kibosh the listening to date”, approving a plan to “flush out the declare for privilege” to be thought-about at an extra listening to on Wednesday.
The court docket additionally heard on Friday that Lehrmann’s staff would seek the advice of a barrister appointed by the DPP about what materials from a Cellebrite report on the content material of Higgins’ cellphone is likely to be disclosable.
McCallum noticed that the purported relevance of the fabric within the report appeared to sign the defence was “chasing cross-examination factors” regarding witness credibility. She mentioned a few of these appeared minor and this might sign “a really lengthy trial”.
McCallum mentioned this was a “concern” to her, likening the breadth of fabric sought to chasing rabbits down holes.
“There are quite a lot of rabbits in the midst of London Circuit,” she quipped, evoking the Canberra roundabout that sits inside view of the court docket.
“My main perform is to make sure Mr Lehrmann and the crown have a good trial. However secondarily, I’m not going to let cross-examination go up hill and down dale for weeks and weeks.”
One other of Lehrmann’s counsel, Steve Whybrow, assured the court docket it was not the defendant’s intention to pursue each potential credit score level however submitted “there's a physique of fabric we have to look at the complainant about”.
Whybrow additionally assured the court docket the fabric wouldn't result in an extra utility to delay the trial, submitting this was “not one thing we search to do in any respect”.
The case returns for an extra pre-trial point out on Wednesday 21 September.
In June McCallum dominated “regrettably and with gritted tooth” to vacate the trial, which was set to start in late June, on account of feedback by journalist Lisa Wilkinson and broadcasters Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones.
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