A man accused of raping Brittany Higgins has been denied a bid to halt his prosecution.
ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum on Friday refused the application for a permanent or temporary stay made by Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers.
He was charged with Ms Higgins’ rape last year and has pleaded not guilty.
“I am not persuaded that the material which the evidence establishes remains on the internet is of a kind that cannot be addressed by appropriate direction to the jury,” Chief Justice McCallum wrote in her judgment.
An application for a takedown order made by Lehrmann’s lawyers, which would have forced media organisations to remove previous articles written about the case, was also dismissed.
“The order sought is bad in form … too broad in reach … and too broad in scope preventing publication of information to persons in other parts of Australia and indeed the world who are not potential jurors in the ACT,” the judgment reads.
Lehrmann was committed to stand trial in the ACT Supreme Court for allegedly raping then Liberal staffer Ms Higgins in an office inside Parliament House in March 2019.
A six-week trial has been set down for June.
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