Bruce Lehrmann breaks his silence as he faces Queensland court for his second rape trial

Bruce Lehrmann will appear in Toowoomba District Court at 9am on Monday to face allegations he raped a 29-year-old woman in October 2021.

He met the woman at a local strip club called ‘The Vault’, before the pair returned to his friend’s house.

She claims they lay in bed fully clothed, kissed and told him to put on a condom. She then claims she woke up and saw him having sex with her.

The woman also claims she woke up the next morning to find him having sex with her again and told her to stop. She claims she felt dizzy the third time they had sex.

He reportedly wasn’t wearing a condom and they went to a pharmacy to buy the morning-after pill, and on the way home they went to McDonald’s.

Lehrmann was charged with two counts of rape in January 2023.

The alleged victim will be questioned on Monday during the hearing, which was intended to determine whether there is enough evidence to take the case to trial.

If it is committed and Lehrmann pleads not guilty, the case will go to trial.

Monday will be the first time that Lehrmann appears in court in this case.

After he was indicted, Lehrmann was known only as a “high profile man” in media reports about the allegations.

However, his identity was revealed after Queensland legislation was changed to allow people accused of sex offenses to be identified before they could stand trial.

After the law was changed, the former political staffer lost his subsequent attempt to obtain a non-publication order to continue protecting his identity.

Two months before he met the Toowoomba woman in 2021, he was accused of sexually assaulting his former colleague Brittany Higgins at Parliament House in Canberra in 2019.