Bruce Lehrmann
Bruce Lehrmann is an Australian former political staffer, primarily known for his involvement in the 2021 Australian Parliament House sexual misconduct allegations. He grew up in Toowoomba and moved to Canberra in 2013 to begin university studies and to work as a staffer.
Lehrmann was first publicly accused of rape in February 2021 and appeared before the court in November of that year. His criminal trial was aborted in October 2022 after juror misconduct resulted in a mistrial. A retrial did not proceed due to concerns for the health and welfare of the complainant.
In 2023, Lehrmann sued several media outlets for defamation over their reporting of the allegations against him. In a defamation case brought by Lehrmann against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court of Australia ruled in April 2024 that, on the civil balance of probabilities, Lehrmann had raped a colleague in Parliament House. Lehrmann appealed this verdict. The appeal, heard by the Full Court of the Federal Court in August 2025, centred on claims that Lehrmann was denied procedural fairness and natural justice. On 3 December 2025 the court dismissed Lehrmann's appeal and ordered him to pay costs.
Early life
Born in College Station, Texas, USA in June 1995, Lehrmann grew up in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. He moved to Canberra to study at the Australian National University where he began his political career in 2013.Lehrmann commenced work with the office of the Attorney-General of Australia and worked for various ministries until he joined Linda Reynolds's office in 2018.
He has worked as a political staffer for the Liberal Party, and as a lobbyist for British American Tobacco.
Parliament House rape allegations
On 15 February 2021, Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins alleged to media outlets, news.com.au and The Project, that she was raped in the early hours of 23 March 2019 in then-Defence Industry Minister Senator Linda Reynolds' office in the ministerial wing of Parliament House by a colleague, later named as Bruce Lehrmann, after security guards admitted the pair into the building. Higgins said she became heavily intoxicated at a work party and left with her colleague in a taxi, believing they would both be dropped at their respective homes; instead she said she was taken to Parliament House and raped while slipping in and out of consciousness, waking to find her skirt around her waist. In contrast, Lehrmann told police that he and Higgins returned to Parliament House because he needed to pick up his keys, and as Higgins indicated she also needed to return to the office he offered to share his Uber ride. Once they arrived in Reynolds' suite, Lehrmann said he "turned left towards his desk, while Ms Higgins turned right and went to a different part of the office". Lehrmann said that after working "on a briefing for Parliament's question time", he left the office without seeing Higgins again. Higgins was later found by a security guard in the early hours of the morning in the minister's office, naked, inebriated and disoriented.Three days later, on 26 March 2019, Lehrmann was told by Fiona Brown, Reynolds' chief of staff, to "collect his belongings from the office and leave" because of his late-night entry into the office at 1:48am on the previous Saturday, and an earlier unrelated incident of him mishandling a classified document. Reynolds formally terminated Lehrmann's employment on 5 April 2019. On 1 April 2019, Reynolds called Higgins to her office to discuss Higgins' late-night entry into the office, which Reynolds "believed to be a security breach describing the decision of two staff to come into the office at 1:40am as 'highly unusual' and not appropriate". Higgins went to the police after the alleged rape, but dropped the complaint in April 2019, fearful the report would result in termination of her employment. Eventually Higgins transferred to work for Minister Michaelia Cash for a year, resigning a month before going public with her allegations.
Higgins made her allegations public following a Four Corners report "Inside the Canberra Bubble" in November 2020, which had reported on sexism within the Liberal Party and the Parliament House workplace culture. She alleged political cover-up of the rape ahead of the 2019 Australian federal election, and sparked a nationwide movement of protests. Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a formal apology to her in February 2022. In response to Higgins's allegations, the Australian Human Rights Commission conducted a review into the prevention and handling of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault at Commonwealth Parliamentary workplaces. Morrison's loss of the 2022 election, with safe Liberal seats going to female Teal independents, was partially attributed to dissatisfaction with the Liberal government's handling of the rape.
Over the following weeks, three more women alleged they had been sexually harassed or assaulted by Lehrmann, between 2016 and 2020. One woman alleged on 20 February 2021 that she was raped by him in 2020 after the pair had dinner and drinks. On 22 February 2021, a second woman alleged she was sexually assaulted by Lehrmann in 2016. A third woman also accused him of unwanted advances and stroking her thigh under the table at a Canberra bar in 2017. After the story went public, and despite Lehrmann not being named in publications, he was stood aside from his job at a large corporation where he had worked from July 2020. He checked himself into a Sydney hospital and the next day he was in a private rehabilitation clinic.
ACT criminal trial
On 4 February 2021, Higgins contacted the Australian Federal Police to reopen her complaint against Lehrmann. Following an interview with police on 19 April 2021, Lehrmann was summoned on 6 August 2021 for the alleged rape of Higgins. Lehrmann, appeared by telephone at the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory on 5 November 2021 and pleaded not guilty to raping Higgins. He was committed for trial in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory.In April 2022 Lehrmann's defence team applied to have his trial halted indefinitely as an apology from then-prime minister Scott Morrison to Higgins "imputed the accused with guilt of the offence or at least implicitly assumed the truthfulness of the complaint", and could endanger Lehrmann's right to a fair trial. The judge dismissed the application, saying that a jury member being aware of pre-trial publicity "is not of itself problematic". Higgins made a complaint against the Australian Federal Police for unlawfully giving Lehrmann's defence team protected evidence, including counselling notes and video recordings. The trial was further delayed in June 2022 following the judge warning that the line between allegation and a finding of guilt had been "obliterated" in an acceptance speech by Lisa Wilkinson at the Logie Awards of 2022 and in commentary following the speech.
The trial of Lehrmann began on 4 October 2022. It concluded on 19 October, and the jury retired to consider its verdict. After four days' deliberation, the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict and were issued with a "Black direction".
On 27 October, the trial was abandoned after it was discovered that a juror had conducted private research and taken their findings into the jury room. Higgins subsequently criticised the criminal justice system on live television, saying it "has long failed to deliver outcomes to victims of sexual assault". Lehrmann's lawyer said "We have brought comments to the attention of the court and the Australian Federal Police... as to whether the complainant's statements might amount to a contempt of court or offences against the ACT Criminal Code".
The matter was relisted for 20 February 2023, although a senior barrister soon after said it remained to be seen if the case is retried, given the extent of comments by politicians and media personalities now making Lehrmann virtually untriable. In December 2022 the case was dropped by Shane Drumgold, the Director of Public Prosecutions, stating it was "no longer in the public interest to pursue a prosecution" after receiving evidence "that the ongoing trauma associated with this prosecution presents a significant and unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant". Lehrmann "consistently maintained his innocence and the case against him was not proven", with the Director of Public Prosecutions declaring that "this brings the prosecution to an end." However, the manner in which the case transpired was criticised.
ACT trial inquiry
Following the collapse of the criminal trial, Drumgold sent a letter to the ACT chief police officer calling for a public inquiry into the case to look at "both political and police conduct". The letter also alleged that police investigators were "clearly aligned with the successful defence of this matter". The Australian Federal Police Association published a statement calling the allegations a "smear" and unproven while also calling for an investigation into the case. The ACT government subsequently announced an independent inquiry into the case.The inquiry was chaired by Walter Sofronoff. The inquiry heard that police assessed the evidence as insufficient to prosecute, and "expressed a number of concerns about the case". The inquiry subsequently heard that ACT police had been using the wrong legal threshold for charging suspects, and that the ACT had the lowest rate of charging for sexual assault in Australia. The senior investigating officer admitted that police made a mistake in providing Higgins' private counselling notes to Lehrmann's legal team.
The final report was leaked to News Corp journalist Janet Albrechtsen before being submitted to the ACT Chief Minister. It contained adverse findings against Drumgold, who resigned following its release to the media. The review found that it was appropriate to prosecute the matter. Recommendations issued included training police on handling of protected confidential material, disclosures to the defence, and the threshold for charging over sexual offences.
Drumgold successfully challenged the adverse findings against him in the ACT Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found that contact between Sofronoff and Albrechtsen gave rise to an impression of bias. In March 2025, there was a finding by the ACT Integrity Commission that Sofronoff had engaged in "serious corrupt conduct" due to their extensive contact with Albrechtsen.