Brittany Lehrmann, at the age of 30, is actively pursuing a permanent halt to the legal proceedings related to the rape case that initially reached the courtroom in January 2023.

The matter of the stay application was briefly addressed today in the Queensland District Court located in Ipswich. This follows several months of delays, which arose as Lehrmann’s lawyer, Zali Burrows, worked to obtain further documents from the police.

Judge Dennis Lynch addressed the court, stating, “On December 3, I plan to provide you with a hearing date.”

He further elaborated, “The hearing will take place in the new year, under my oversight in Ipswich, likely sometime in February.”

This provisional date for the stay hearing was set following Burrows’ success in a separate court application, indicating progress in the case’s procedural aspects.

Police had “redacted” words from a second download of the alleged victim’s phone and would now provide the full copy, Burrows said.

“We require a couple of weeks to consider this and incorporate it into the stay application,” she said.

District Judge Craig Chowdhury in a judgment handed down on Friday last week ordered prosecutors to hand over the phone download.

The second extraction of data from the complainant’s phone was required as the first copy was lost when a detective’s hard drive malfunctioned, the court was previously told.

The stay application is partly based on claims that evidence of Lehrmann’s innocence was also contained on the now destroyed hard drive.

Lehrmann, who is on bail and yet to formally enter a plea, previously worked in Canberra’s Parliament House for then Liberal senator and defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.

He was committed in July last year to stand trial on two rape charges following two days of hearings in Toowoomba Magistrates Court into the reliability of the alleged victim’s evidence.

They met during the previous night at a strip club in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

The woman told police she met Lehrmann and discussed their political beliefs before catching a taxi to his friend’s house, having consensual sex and consuming cocaine about 4am.

The woman said she was woken up about 10am by Lehrmann sexually assaulting her.

Lehrmann previously indicated he would contest the charges.

Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told Judge Lynch the court-ordered copy of the alleged victim’s phone data should soon be available to Burrows.

“We should be able to disclose that material relatively quickly,” Marco said.

“We are communicating with His Honour Judge Chowdhury’s associate because the time and date of the range of messages provided in the judgment does not 100 per cent correspond with our copy of the download.”

Burrows and Marco said they were content with returning to court in December.

Judge Lynch ordered the case next be mentioned on December 3 and continued Lehrmann’s bail.