No-one likes to see another person facing mental anguish through no fault of their own so in the aftermath of the rape trial of the century, all our thoughts and prayers for a quick recovery must surely be going out this morning to Bruce Lehrmann.

Lehrmann, in a very bad way in hospital, is understandably a shattered man now that he has no chance of clearing his name at a retrial over the alleged rape of work colleague Brittany Higgins.

He knows nothing criminal happened late at night at Parliament House back in March 2019 because he had a girlfriend at the time but he desperately wanted the rest of Australia to know that too.

Lehrmann is reportedly in a bad brain space as he was dreading having to sit through the February retrial and say nothing as his friend Higgins was once again grilled for days on end as to whether she hated men because of her father’s bad choices of Christmas presents during her childhood.

He was desperately arguing with his defence lawyers to let him take to the witness box and tell the world exactly what happened that night. To take as long as was needed to clear his good name.

Did he regret going back to Parliament House late that night with an equally drunk Higgins despite the fact that had a girlfriend at the time and nothing happened?

Of course he does. But he desperately wanted to draft some notes to leave on the desk of his boss, Minister Linda Reynolds. Tactics suggestions; possible speech ideas. That sort of stuff.

They both sipped a cleansing scotch or two as he undertook those tasks. He then wanted to check through the latest Hansard pages for possible errors and does he regret doing that because Higgins got bored and said she was going to have a liedown in an adjoining room?

Of course he does! Should he have been aware that the airconditioning in that adjoining room wasn’t working, forcing Higgins to take off all her clothes?

Of course he can’t be blamed for that. But could he blamed for making the mistake of thinking Higgins had called out to him that she was leaving when in fact he realises now that what he heard was the poor girl vomiting all over the couch and her dress on the floor beside her, which is why that couch had to be steamcleaned ahead of schedule shortly after.

He really did think he heard her say: “Strewth, I’m out of here!” when, in hindsight, it’s now quite possible he heard something like “Ruth!” and other upchuck noises.

So does he not blame himself for checking on her whereabouts anyway? Of course he does and that’s exactly what he wanted to tell the retrial. To explain exactly how things panned out and how there is no way in the world he, as a decent young man talented enough to one day seek Liberal preselection for a winnable seat, would have just left the poor woman naked and drunk in that other room and in danger of choking herself to death if he had known that!

He also badly wanted, after placing his hand on a bible, to tell any retrial that he had no bad feelings towards Higgins for claiming under oath that she had woken up with him inside her.

They’re still friends and he hopes one day Higgins comes to her senses and realises her recounting of that alleged assault must have been some form of alcohol-fuelled fake memory recall, seeing sex never happened in the first place because he had a girlfriend at the time.

That’s what Lehrmann wanted to happen at the retrial and his mental anguish over the fact that he has lost his chance to clear his good name is totally understandable.

Nevertheless, he is hopeful that the terrible things that happened to him during this case don’t prevent future sexual-assault defendants from coming forward and hoping to see justice prevail.

And for those reasons, I’m sure all of you Buggers out there share my hopes that poor Bruce Lehrmann gets the proper mental-health treatment from the very best of professionals and makes a full recovery.

Don Gordon-Brown