[ad_1]
MELBOURNE, Australia — The high-profile trial of a former parliamentary staffer accused of raping a colleague in Australia’s Parliament Home was halted on Thursday after the court docket found {that a} juror had introduced a analysis article on sexual assault circumstances into the jury room.
Justice Lucy McCallum dismissed the jury, which had been deliberating for 5 days, saying that the juror had contravened her strict directions to rely solely on proof introduced in court docket. She tentatively scheduled a brand new trial for February.
The defendant, Bruce Lehrmann, 27, is charged with sexually assaulting a fellow parliamentary staffer, Brittany Higgins, in 2019. Ms. Higgins, 28, alleged that Mr. Lehrmann had raped her within the protection minister’s workplace after an evening of ingesting with colleagues. Mr. Lehrmann has constantly denied the accusation.
The trial of Mr. Lehrmann, greater than a yr and a half later, has forged uncommon scrutiny on Australia’s typically secretive halls of energy, with a parade of senators, workers members and parliamentary safety guards known as to the witness stand.
Ms. Higgins took the stand for a number of days, describing intimately her recollection of being raped and, later, of being discouraged from going to the police by members of the federal government that employed her. Tapes have been performed of Mr. Lehrmann’s police interview, by which he stated there had been no sexual exercise between the 2 of them.
As she dismissed the jury in Canberra, the capital, on Thursday, Justice McCallum stated that sheriff’s officers had by chance found the analysis paper whereas tidying up the jury room. She stated it was attainable that the paper wouldn’t have influenced the jury’s determination, “however that isn’t a threat I can take.”
She stated the paper was “a dialogue in regards to the unhelpfulness of making an attempt to quantify the prevalence of false complaints” of sexual assault, “and a deeper evaluation of the rationale for each false complaints and skepticism within the face of true complaints.” It could possibly be used to argue for both aspect within the case, she stated.
In a rustic the place sexual assault trials are often shrouded in secrecy, the case is uncommon in that each the plaintiff and defendant have been publicly recognized. It has been lined by dozens of journalists offering reside updates, placing a uncommon highlight on the method, together with the grueling cross-examination practices to which accusers in such circumstances are sometimes subjected, consultants stated.
The extraordinary publicity the case obtained has presented issues in a rustic the place the courts are delicate to exterior influences on jurors. Justice McCallum had warned the jury on a minimum of a dozen events that they may not search out media studies or exterior details about the trial, and should solely depend on what was introduced to them in court docket.
Ms. Higgins testified that she had blacked out and woken as much as discover herself on the sofa within the protection minister’s personal suite, with Mr. Lehrmann on high of her. She instructed Mr. Lehrmann no a number of occasions, she stated in a police recording that was performed for the court docket. “It wasn’t acknowledged,” she stated. “He simply stored going.”
She sat by means of days of intense cross-examination by protection attorneys, who steered that she didn’t really keep in mind what had occurred and accused her of creating up the accusation to guard her job. She denied that every time, generally defiantly and generally in tears.
Mr. Lehrmann didn’t testify. In a taped interview with the police, he stated there had been no sexual contact between them and that he had by no means entered the protection minister’s personal suite. When the 2 arrived on the workplace, he instructed the police, he went to his desk and Ms. Higgins went to the personal suite, after which “I didn’t see her once more.”
He stated he spent about 45 minutes getting ready some paperwork for the protection minister, picked up what he wanted for the weekend and summoned an Uber.
Outdoors the court docket on Thursday, an emotional Ms. Higgins stated, “I instructed the reality, regardless of how uncomfortable or unflattering, to the court docket. As we speak’s final result doesn’t change that reality.”
She highlighted the differing ranges of scrutiny she and Mr. Lehrmann confronted in the course of the trial. “My life has been publicly scrutinized, open for the world to see,” she stated. “His was not.”
“That is the fact of how complainants in sexual circumstances are handled,” she added. “Their lives are torn aside, their pals and households are known as to the witness stand, and the accused has the authorized proper to say completely nothing.”
Steven Whybrow, Mr. Lehrmann’s lawyer, stated that the end result was disappointing, however that it could be “inappropriate and irresponsible” to say anything whereas the matter was nonetheless earlier than the court docket.
[ad_2]
Source link
