A man accused of raping a colleague went on trial at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra.
Former political operative Bruce Lehrman has been accused of sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins in a government minister’s office in March 2019.
Mr Lehrman, 27, has pleaded not guilty and has denied the couple had sex.
The trial in the Canberra court is expected to last six weeks and could call several high-profile witnesses.
Opening their case on Tuesday, prosecutors said the alleged incident occurred after a “drunken night out” with colleagues.
The jury was told that Mr Lehrman and Miss Higgins stayed at Parliament House, where they both worked, and Ms Higgins soon fell asleep on a sofa in the minister’s office.
“The next thing I remember was being on the couch when he was raping me,” Ms Higgins said in a police interview played in court.
“I said ‘no’ at least half a dozen times. He didn’t stop.
“I was crying through the whole process.”
The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court heard Ms Higgins had 11 drinks earlier that night and, in the days that followed, found herself “barely in the mood” and so intoxicated “I couldn’t write my name”. .
She initially reported the incident in April 2019, but the court heard she withdrew her complaint because she feared it would interfere with her job during the election campaign.
Almost two years later, in February 2021, he asked the police to reopen the case after being interviewed by two journalists.
But Mr Lehrman’s barrister, Steven Wybro, said there were holes and inconsistencies in Ms Higgins’ account of events.
He said it was the “elephant in the room” that Ms Higgins had gone to the media before she pleaded with police in 2021 – and urged the judges to disregard previous media coverage which According to him, it was snowing.
He said his allegations had “shaken the entire political landscape.”
“Mark Twain once said: ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.’ And this case epitomizes that phrase,” said the barrister.
He added that Mr. Lehrmann was entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum also warned the judges that the case had received “a fair amount of media publicity” but it was “too important” to put it out of their minds.
