Brittany Higgins leaves court in Canberra earlier this month. Photo: AFP
The jury in the rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann has been discharged without a verdict after a juror admitted to accessing information that was not presented as evidence in court.
Lehrmann was accused of raping his then-colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House after a night out drinking in March 2019.
He pleaded not guilty and said no sexual activity occurred between the pair.
The trial ran for 12 days and saw 29 witnesses take the stand, including Liberal senators Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash.
Juror had research paper relating to false rape allegations
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum said today that she had learned at least one juror had obtained relevant material that was not included in the trial.
She summoned the 12 jurors to the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra this morning to question one of them about a research paper found on one of them.
Chief Justice McCallum said she had no other option than to discharge the remaining jurors.
The court heard the material was discovered in a routine tidying.
The court heard the academic paper related to the "unhelpfulness of trying to quantify" how often false rape accusations were made.
The document was in one of the juror's plastic evidence boxes, which was accidentally knocked to the ground yesterday.
A security officer who picked up the box noticed the paper's title and reported it.
Chief Justice McCallum said she had warned the jurors "at least 17 times" during the trial not to try to find out more about the case other than what they heard in court.
"You must not try to undertake your own research," she said she told them.
"You must rely exclusively on the evidence you hear in this courtroom.
"If you are learning something about this trial, and I'm not there, then you should not be doing it."
Nonetheless, she thanked the jurors, saying mistrials were a possibility in all jury trials.
"This may come as a frustration to you after the hard work you all put in, and I want to convey my extreme gratitude," she said.
"I don't want you to leave court thinking this has been a waste of time."
The chief justice also said that, despite what some people might have believed, the jurors appeared to be making a genuine effort to reach a unanimous verdict.
The jury had initially told the judge on Monday that it was unable to reach a verdict, but it had continued to meet and was its seventh day of closed-door deliberations.
ACT law requires a unanimous jury verdict for findings of guilty or not guilty.
Retrial scheduled for next February
The judge granted Lehrmann bail until a new trial, scheduled for 20 February, 2023.
The courtroom has been packed with journalists throughout the trial.
Chief Justice McCallum closed the hearing with a warning to the media in the room, saying Lehrmann was merely accused of a crime and might never be convicted.
"The fairness of his trial may be impaired if people continue to report on this case with this frequency," she said.
"I would expect that, after reporting the outcome of the trial today, that reporting of this matter should fall silent, so that the accused should have a fair trial, and so that Ms Higgins should have some respite from the intense glare of the media that has been pervasive throughout this trial."
Outside court, Lehrmann's lawyer Steven Whybrow said the defence team was "disappointed".
"Everyone is disappointed at what happened but it would be inappropriate and irresponsible to say anything at this stage," he said.
-ABC
