12 hours ago
Bruce Lehrmann lodges court application to have rape charges halted
Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann has filed a court application seeking that rape charges against him in Queensland be permanently halted.
The application, filed this week in the Toowoomba District Court, seeks a declaration that intercepted phone calls between Mr Lehrmann's lawyers and Queensland police were "illegally obtained".
The defence's application also requested that the defendant have a list of materials in the police investigation and a declaration that the Queensland Police Service "do not have the power nor the discretion to determine what is relevant to a defence case and must disclose all materials in the course of the police investigation".
Mr Lehrmann's Sydney-based lawyer Zali Burrows filed the application for a permanent stay of the proceedings and for pre-trial directions and rulings under the Criminal Code.
It follows weeks of legal wrangling between the Crown and Ms Burrows, who came on board as his legal representative after the case was committed for trial.
Mr Lehrmann faces two counts of rape, alleged to have occurred in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, in October 2021.
Following a committal hearing in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court in July 2024, Mr Lehrmann was committed to stand trial in the Toowoomba District Court.
In May this year, Ms Burrows told the District Court, during a mention of the case, that there was a "shroud of secrecy" over the police investigation into her client.
On that occasion, Ms Burrows said the defence had only received about 200 pages of a 2,200-page download from the complainant's mobile phone records.
The defence was also seeking access to all police notebooks, diary entries, emails and text messages related to the rape investigation.
A hearing of the defence application for the police notebooks and other information has been set down for July 25 in the Toowoomba District Court.
Mr Lehrmann's application for a permanent stay will be mentioned in the Ipswich District Court on Wednesday, as the Toowoomba District Court is not sitting this week.
Court documents, filed in the Toowoomba District Court, also include an affidavit from the practice manager at the Toowoomba office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Peter Blake-Segovia.
In that affidavit, Mr Blake-Segovia said that the arresting police officer, Detective Senior Constable Ashlee Ryder, had responded to him via email, setting out items in her possession that were not provided as part of the brief to the DPP, including:
Mr Blake-Segovia said the police officer had also confirmed "that there were two notebooks in her possession that were not part of the brief provided to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I have sought these items be provided for disclosure."
The officer confirmed that all signed statements had been provided but that a further addendum, from the complainant, had been drafted but not yet signed. Once signed, it would be provided, the DPP officer said.
The DPP said that once all items were received from the police officer, they would be reviewed "to ascertain whether they ought to be disclosed" prior to the hearing listed for July 25.
