Michael Lamb: Dismissal of charges against Frankston cop appealed in Supreme Court
A Frankston police officer and former state election candidate is in court over claims he leaked information to 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.
South East
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A Frankston police officer appeared in Supreme Court over charges that he leaked sensitive police data to the media to further his now defunct political career.
Senior Sergeant Michael Lamb is alleged to have been the police mole who gave 3AW’s Neil Mitchell insider details about 21 crime incidents in order to create a climate of fear in the lead up to the 2018 state election, when Lamb contested the seat of Frankston as a Liberal.
It was alleged Sen-Sgt Lamb would go into the Frankston or Mornington police stations and use his ID number to access overnight crime details and then contact 3AW to disclose the information.
His candidature for the state seat crumbled after he became involved in a trainwreck interview with Sky News’ political editor David Speers.
Four of the charges against Lamb were thrown out at the Frankston Magistrates’ Court in June 2020, however an appeal by the DPP was heard by Justice Beale of the Supreme Court on Monday.
The charges were originally thrown out of the Magistrates’ Court because the defence successfully argued that the charges were invalid because they were poorly drafted and didn’t properly describe the exact details of what Lamb had been charged with.
The charges were also unable to be amended as more than 12 months had elapsed since they were laid, and any changes would constitute a new offence.
Lamb’s defence lawyer, Paul Holdenson QC, largely repeated those arguments in Monday’s hearing, telling the court that the charges being appealed contained a “fundamental misstatement of the offence.” and were therefore invalid.
Mr Holdenson argued that by misstating the offences on the charges, the police informant had altered what the prosecution was required to prove, alleging an offence that required a lower burden of proof for the prosecutor.
Senior Crown Prosecutor Elizabeth Ruddle SC argued in her submission that it was well established that charges must be read with the intention of understanding the meaning as the drafter intended and that the defence was intentionally failing to understand the charges in that manner.
Ms Ruddle argued that the contention centred on the difference between the phrases ‘It was not the duty of the member to disclose’ and ‘It was the duty of the member not to disclose.’ Ms Ruddle argued that a reasonable defendant would read the charges as clearly implying a duty not to disclose.
She also argued that the intention of the law prohibiting the amendment of charges after more than 12 months had elapsed was not to close out the possibility of amendment of invalid charges outside the limitation period, but instead to align the common law with the Criminal Procedure Act.
Justice Beale reserved his judgment and adjourned the court until he reached a decision.
