Prosecutors have dropped charges against 27-year-old Bruce Lehrmann who was accused of allegedly raping former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins at the Parliament House in March 2019.
Shane Drumgold, the Australian Capital Territory [ACT] director of public prosecutions, said on Friday that the sexual assault charge against Mr Lehrmann would be dropped, due to an “unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant [Ms Higgins]”.
Mr Lehrmann faced trial over the offence earlier this year but the jury was discharged in October when misconduct by one of the jurors was uncovered.
A new trial date had been set for 20 February next year. Now, Mr Drumgold said that the trial won’t take place.
Throughout the first trial, Mr Lehrmann had denied any wrongdoing and maintained that no sex took place.
Giving reasons for dropping the trial, Mr Drumgold said that he recently received “compelling evidence” from two independent medical experts that the “ongoing trauma associated with this prosecution presents a significant and unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant”.
He added: “The evidence makes it clear that this is not limited to the harm of giving evidence in a witness box, rather applies whether or not the complainant is required to enter a witness box during a retrial.”
He said he needed to “consider the harm that could be occasioned to a party, particularly a complainant, from an ongoing prosecution”.
Mr Drumgold also said that Ms Higgins had “faced a level of personal attack” that he had “not seen in over 20 years of doing this work”. Ms Higgins, he added, has done so “with bravery, grace and dignity”.
Meanwhile, Ms Higgins is currently receiving treatment in hospital, according to a statement from her friend Emma Webster.
“Brittany is in hospital getting the treatment and support she needs. The last couple of years have been difficult and unrelenting. While it’s disappointing the trial has ended this way, Brittany’s health and safety must always come first.”
Mr Drumgold said earlier on Friday that since the retrial won’t take place, he hoped that “Ms Higgins will be allowed to heal”.
On Twitter, one user, Victoria Fielding wrote: “So devastated to hear Bruce Lehrmann retrial won’t be going ahead because Brittany Higgins is so traumatised by the first trial, her mental health is too fragile to keep going. Why can’t the legal system find a way for victims to seek justice without publicly traumatising them?”
Another observer wrote: “The rape charge against Bruce Lehrmann should not have been dropped simply because his defence lawyers and former government MPs were allowed to bully and intimidate his alleged victim until she needed hospital treatment. This is a shame on the court that allowed it.”
And yet another user, Emma Husar said that the system favours the perpetrators. “Our justice system has spectacularly failed a courageous, fierce survivor. Picking through every detail of the survivors story while the accused gets to remain silent. We take two things away from this #Brittany is a hero. The system favours perps [sic].”
“This is not justice. Sexual assault charge against Bruce Lehrmann dropped. Our legal systems should not cause such damage and retraumatise the VICTIMS so much that the perpetrators are not held accountable. The system protect perpetrators,” wrote another user.
