The trial of Bruce Lehrmann over the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins at Parliament House may have been abandoned, but the fall-out continues.
Mr Lehrmann, who was accused of raping Mr Higgins in a ministerial office, has maintained his innocence and there have been no findings against him after the trial was abandoned.
The extraordinary first week of an ACT board of inquiry into how criminal justice agencies handled his case concluded on Friday.
On day one, former Queensland judge Walter Sofronoff, who is chairing the inquiry, issued a clear warning.
“Public inquiries unavoidably hurt some people’s reputations.” Mr Sofronoff said.
“To the extent that damage to reputation is unavoidable, then it must be lived with.”
The irony is the hurt so far has all fallen mostly on the man who called for the inquiry in the first place.
ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold has faced intense questioning over five days in the witness box.
The inquiry was sparked by a letter sent from chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold to the ACT’s chief police officer, in which he claimed police had pressured him not to charge Mr Lehrmann.
And rather than a spotlight on police actions, it is Mr Drumgold who has had to face the music.
It began with notes taken in a meeting
It began on Monday, with what seemed an innocuous reference to notes taken during a meeting with journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
Wilkinson was one of two journalists who broke the story, with an interview with Brittany Higgins for The Project on Network Ten in February 2021.
Later, when she was nominated for an award at the upcoming Logies for her coverage, Wilkinson had a video conference meeting with prosecutors when she was expected to be a witness in Mr Lehrmann’s trial.
At the end of the interview, she told Mr Drumgold about the nomination and sought his advice about what she could say in a speech if she were to win.
Her barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, quizzed Mr Drumgold about his attitude.
“You thought at the time that my client raised this issue to brag,” Ms Chrysanthou said.
“That was the perception I had,” Mr Drumgold replied.
Days later, Wilkinson won a Logie, and gave a speech in which she referred to Ms Higgins’s “bravery”.
The publicity prompted Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers to seek a stay on the trial, which was ultimately granted.
At the time, the ACT’s Chief Justice Lucy McCallum made scathing remarks about Wilkinson based on the belief she had been warned by Mr Drumgold that any publicity might harm the trial.
This belief had come from a file note about the meeting with Wilkinson in which Mr Drumgold said he told her, “we are not speech editors”.
The note also mentioned that the defence could pursue a stay application if there was publicity.
This week, Mr Drumgold admitted the file note had been added after Wilkinson’s Logie’s speech.
But in her statement to the inquiry, Wilkinson disputed that there was any warning given at all, and said if there were, Network Ten’s lawyer would have noted it as well.
“I specifically raised the issue of the speech with Mr DrumgoId because I was concerned to ensure that it did not in any way impact on the trial,” she said.
“The only clear warning I was given was not to mention the trial, and I did not.”
On Friday, Mr Drumgold faced intense questioning from Ms Chrysanthou over whether he gave a warning or not.
Mr Drumgold accepted he should have given a clearer direction.
“I would accept that I entirely misread the situation,” he said.
Ms Chrysanthou pointed to the intense media coverage focused on Wilkinson.
“There were front pages on every major newspaper the next day criticising Ms Wilkinson for failing to heed to your warning to not give the Logie speech,” Ms Chrysanthou said.
Ms Chrysanthou questioned why he had not told the judge or the media that the information was wrong.
The inquiry has seen evidence of correspondence from Wilkinson’s lawyers immediately after the judgement and media reports, asking Mr Drumgold to do something to correct the information.
He conceded he should have engaged with their concerns more.
“I didn’t give this the attention it deserved,” Mr Drumgold said.
“I simply couldn’t change the flow of the media. I could not change the media. I couldn’t make the media change their reporting.”
A question of political interference
But that wasn’t the only backdown Mr Drumgold was forced to make.
He had raised concerns about the service of the brief to the defence in the case, which included counselling notes belonging to Ms Higgins.
The material is protected, and Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer at the time said he realised what was in the brief and returned it unread.
But Mr Drumgold admitted he did read the notes, even though he shouldn’t have.
Then he conceded the action had been a “mess-up” by police, and not deliberate.
Later in his evidence, he said he had been suspicious of political interference in the prosecution.
Mr Drumgold said his suspicions were informed by the “cumulative effect” of various issues he had with police conduct.
Lawyers for the Australian Federal Police challenged his account, pointing to his notes of meetings, which he’d been keeping since he became concerned there may be pressure being placed on him not to proceed with the case.
That led to another about-face on Thursday when he admitted he no longer suspected political interference in the prosecution of Mr Lehrmann, after reading the submissions to the inquiry.
And on Friday, he admitted that when he raised the issue of political interference he had already formed the view that there was no interference.
Lawyers in the case challenged him over the claims, pointing to the wide media coverage that had been generated when he didn’t even believe it himself.
“I accept I probably should have injected the addendum,” Mr Drumgold said.
The inquiry will continue next week with Mr Lehrmann’s lawyer, Steve Whybrow, in the witness box.