The man accused of raping Brittany Higgins is set to stand trial in October after his case was delayed by a journalist's speech and subsequent publicity with the power to "obliterate" the distinction between an allegation and proven guilt.
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Chief Justice Lucy McCallum fixed new dates for the trial of Bruce Lehrmann in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, when concerns about books apparently connected with the case were also raised.
The new dates had to be set after the judge ruled on Tuesday that prejudice to Lehrmann meant the accused's trial could not proceed as planned next week.
She nominated October 4 as the new commencement date, rejecting defence barrister Steven Whybrow's request to start early next year instead.
"The bushfire is still burning," Mr Whybrow had earlier told the court, referring to the publicity generated by a speech television presenter Lisa Wilkinson gave at the Logie awards last Sunday.
Ms Wilkinson, a co-host of The Project, addressed a live television audience of some 885,000 viewers that night after winning an award for a story in which she revealed allegations Ms Higgins had been raped at Parliament House.
The alleged incident is said to have occurred in the office of Morrison government minister Linda Reynolds, for whom Ms Higgins and Lehrmann worked at the time, in March 2019.
As Mr Whybrow successfully applied on Tuesday for a temporary stay of Lehrmann's impending trial, it was revealed Ms Wilkinson had been warned four days before her speech about its potential consequences for the case.
Chief Justice McCallum said notes from a conference, at which Ms Wilkinson spoke with prosecutors about the evidence she planned to give at the trial, showed the journalist raised the fact she was nominated for a Logie award.
Ms Wilkinson said she had prepared a speech in case she won, and proceeded to read the first line before being stopped by ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC.
"We are not speech editors," Mr Drumgold told her before giving what Chief Justice McCallum called a "clear and appropriate" warning that any publicity outside the court process may result in an application for a stay.
Notwithstanding the warning, Ms Wilkinson spoke at the awards after winning a Silver Logie.
"The implicit premise of the speech was to celebrate the truthfulness of the story [Ms Wilkinson] exposed," Chief Justice McCallum said.
"It's a crowing of the success of good investigative journalism, that resulted in this important truthful story being told as it should have been."
She said the speech and subsequent public commentary had combined to "obliterate" the distinction between Ms Higgins' untested allegation and proof Lehrmann, who has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent, had raped his former Liberal colleague.
Chief Justice McCallum was ultimately not satisfied any directions given to jurors could adequately address the prejudice to the accused in time for the trial to begin next Monday.
As the judge set the new start date on Thursday, the court heard lawyers for Ms Wilkinson, Network Ten and others had offered to provide undertakings to refrain from further public commentary about the case.
Mr Drumgold also raised concerns about what he understood were five "potential books" connected with the case, naming journalists Samantha Maiden, Niki Savva and Peter van Onselen among the apparent authors.
He said he planned to contact those people to ask if there were indeed books "on foot" and, if there were, seek undertakings that publication would not precede the trial unless issues before the court were left out.
Chief Justice McCallum replied that the books would be "very thin" if no matters before the court were included.
"It'd be a masterpiece of rhetoric and subtlety to avoid breaching the law," she said.
