EXCLUSIVE: He was once considered a ‘rising star’ of the Liberal Party, but Bruce Lehrmann is now accused of being the senior adviser who resigned over a so-called “security breach” which ended with a young woman traumatised inside the offices of Parliament House. Serkan Ozturk investigates.
It’s sadly just the latest example of sexual violence, abuse and cover ups that we now expect of the establishment in Australia.
A junior Liberal Party staffer just weeks into her “dream job” gets targeted by a more senior colleague during a work-related social outing and plied with alcohol before being taken back to a quiet office in the early hours and raped while partly unconscious.
That was the allegation outlined by 24-year-old Britanny Higgins, who told Channel Ten’s The Project earlier this week in a searing interview that she had felt pressured to not take action over the incident which took place two years ago, in March 2018, so as to protect the “brand” of the Liberal Party.
And we’ve seen that brand protection exercise in fruition publicly this week, with the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, going to great lengths to claim he had no idea about the incident involving Ms Higgins until just a couple days ago. That’s despite three of his own senior staff being aware of the events soon after they occurred. Fabulously, the Prime Minister expects the public to believe him when he – a known control freak – espouses he knew nothing. Even former PM, Malcolm Turnbull, has called that out as bullshit.
BRITTANY HIGGINS GOES PUBLIC WITH RAPE ALLEGATIONS ON THE PROJECT
According to the story relayed by Ms Higgins to the media, soon after the traumatic incident occurred inside the office of Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, one of her colleagues – another adviser – was allowed to resign over a so-called “security breach”.
The identity of that person has remained anonymous, for two years. Until now.
True Crime News Weekly can exclusively reveal the identity of the political staffer who resigned over the security breach as Bruce Lehrmann.
Bruce Lehrmann: Resigned over a “security breach” inside the office of his boss Defence Minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019 (Image: Twitter / Supplied)
It is perhaps easy to see why the Liberal Party and their mates in the media have helped keep this “security breach” quiet for two years now.
For it seems Mr Lehrmann was quite well connected within the party and being groomed for a major role in politics.
According to a now deleted LinkedIn profile, Lehrmann was educated at the Australian National University and graduated with a degree in Arts and Policy Studies.
The LinkedIn profile of Bruce Lehrmann that has since been deleted or deactivated (Image: LinkedIn / Supplied)
Soon after, the young Liberal had scored himself some cushy positions within Federal Parliament. From March 2016 until August 2017, he was the office manager for then Attorney-General, high-profile senator George Brandis.
According to a bio of a recently deleted Twitter account, Lehrmann has stated he had been working as a policy adviser to the Liberal Party since 2013. The Twitter account belonging to Mr Lehrmann was active and live until at least just two months ago.
Mr Lehrmann was one of the persons thanked by the outgoing Senator Brandis during his valedictory speech given to Parliament in February 2018, just about a year before Mr Lehrmann himself would resign.
From August 2017 until December 2017, Mr Lehrmann was an adviser in the office of the Assistant Minister for Health.
Between December 2017 until October 2018, Mr Lehrmann was then going by the moniker of ‘Health Policy Adviser & Senate Adviser’ within the office of the Minister of Rural Health, Sport and Regional Communications.
From October 2018, Mr Lehrmann was then a senior adviser to Minister Reynolds, first in her role as Assistant Home Affairs Minister and then as Defence Minister from early 2019. According to the now deleted LinkedIn profile, Mr Lehrmann left his position with Minister Reynolds in March 2019, the same month the incident involving Ms Higgins occurred.
Then, just two months after losing his job inside Parliament House over the “security breach”, Mr Lehrmann somehow scored himself a lucrative position with Ogilvy PR – who just happen to be a Liberal Party aligned public relations and lobbyist firm which largely does work on behalf of the corporate status quo.
According to the deactivated LinkedIn profile, Mr Lehrmann left his position with Ogilvy mid last year. It is unclear as to where Mr Lehrmann may be working as of today.
True Crime News Weekly does not suggest whatsoever that Mr Lehrmann has engaged in the alleged rape of Ms Higgins, but we do state that Mr Lehrmann was the individual likely captured on CCTV footage alongside Ms Higgins inside Parliament House on the night in question, and that soon after the incident he was the person to have resigned from Minister Reynolds’ office over a so-called security breach.
Mr Lehrmann has been contacted over one of his social media accounts for comment to this story. He has not responded. However, a few hours after this story was published, Mr Lehrmann checked himself into Sydney’s Royal North Shore hospital, according to other media reports.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, relationship or family violence, call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT. org.au
Nice work there Serkan. It will be interesting to see if this dude has anything to say outside of a court of law.
Excellent sleuthing, but please ensure your publicising the perp doesn’t jeopardise justice.
If he is prosecuted in the public square, he may never be considered able to get a fair trial.
100% what I am thinking and im going to speak to someone about this
How about he has his head kicked in the public square.
Great article. Thanks for publishing the story details that the Liberal-Party aligned media refuse to publish.
Let’s hope your article doesn’t jeopardise true justice .. there’s such a thing as innocent until proven guilty
5 days later & a 4th woman has accused the same criminal
Is it a coincidence that he is holding up the NRL’s most coveted prize?
Townsville Magpie has an interesting little tidbit about this alleged rapist:
https://www.townsvillemagpie.com.au/unfriendly-fire-the-real-reason-behind-the-facebook-ban-morrisons-lip-service-to-stiffen-ruperts-business-end/
No verification, but interesting. Someone should follow up with BAT.
whats with the murdoch dinosaur paywall. michael west isn’t so stoopeed!!!
He looks like the Hot Chocolate Rapist (in his “Cleo Bachelor of the Year” days)…
… not sure what to make of that
Hey there. I would love to read this article, but I am not going to pay to read something by someone I’ve never heard of, especially since I’m up to my eyeballs in subscriptions right now. Just something to think about as you try to publish and promote your work, not a criticism, it’s your right.
Hi Shae – thanks for your comment. We regularly provide other content on our site for free like our podcasts, however we need to charge for dangerous and risky investigations like this one as we do all this work unfunded and unwaged. We have no sponsors or benefactors or grant money so we need to charge for users to access most of the site. Thanks for visiting our unknown site. Our publisher, Serkan Ozturk, was on Channel Nine recently if you would like to know more about him and the website.
https://www.9now.com.au/australian-scandal/season-1/episode-1