Media organisations on Monday asked for a ruling on whether journalists could be in court when the complainant testified due to the public interest in the case.
Barrister Jessica Goldie, representing this masthead and other outlets, submitted that journalists were still bound by legislation not to publicly identify the woman.
Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald and Lehrmann’s barrister Andrew Hoare KC opposed any change to normal practices.
“It is opposed by her, and therefore opposed by the Crown,” Friedewald said.
“She wishes for her privacy to be maintained, in the way that any other complainant in the matter of this kind would have their privacy maintained…she is not supportive of having the media remain in the courtroom or be linked in via other means.”
Magistrate Mark Howden agreed, dismissing the media’s application before asking journalists to leave the courtroom.
“I accept the principle of open justice and I acknowledge the high public interest in this case, however… the matter ought to proceed in the ordinary way in my opinion,” Howden said.
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Lehrmann’s identity was initially withheld from publication to comply with Queensland’s sex crime laws, which, at the time, allowed identification only if, or when, the accused was committed to stand trial. Queensland has since changed the law, and Queensland Supreme Court judge Peter Applegarth dismissed his application for anonymity in October last year.
Since then, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee, presiding over a civil defamation case between Lehrmann and Network Ten, ruled that to the lower civil standard, on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann had raped Higgins.