Shane Drumgold breaks silence after damning report into Bruce Lehrmann trial

ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold has broken his silence on a damning report into his conduct during the Bruce Lehrmann trial.

ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold has broken his silence on a damning report into his conduct, declaring he disputes the findings and is disappointed the investigation never bothered to canvass the leaking of Brittany Higgins private text messages to the media.

In the letter, Mr Drumgold slams Walter Sofronoff KC’s decision to provide the document to the media before the government, arguing he has been “denied natural justice”.

The DPP, who earns more than $400,000 a year, says he will resign from the role effective from September 1, 2023, three months after he first took paid leave on health grounds.

By retiring from the law, it remains unclear whether a proposed complaint to the ACT Bar Association about his conduct — which includes claims he misled the ACT Supreme Court and did not disclose material he ought to have — will proceed.

In the most damning findings, Mr Sofronoff found that if his attempts to stop the defence from having access to material that raised concerns about discrepancies in evidence had proceeded, it would have resulted in a mistrial if it had ever been discovered.

But in a media statement, Mr Drumgold disputes some of those findings and decries the “weaponisation” of Ms Higgins private and confidential records by the media which has involved leaking the entire contents of her phone and an unpublished book.

The material was obtained by police and shared with the DPP and the defence team and later lawyers at the Sofronoff inquiry but never tendered as evidence.

Shane Drumgold is resigning as ACT Director of Public Prosecutions. Picture: Dylan Robinson/NCA NewsWire

In a statement, Mr Drumgold said he was disappointed that his letter which led to the Board of Inquiry, which had extremely broad powers, did not deliver a seminal moment in time, one to potentially rival the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Assault.

“In November 2022 I wrote a letter to the ACT’s Chief Police Officer. In it I set out serious concerns I then held about the way an investigation and trial of DPP v Lehrmann were handled,” he said.

“In my mind, the handling of the case was reflective of the chronic problem in Australia with the way our legal institutions deal with allegations of sexual violence.

“According to ABS national data – for every 100 women who suffer sexual violence, 87 do not trust them to our legal institutions.

“The ABS data shows that the largest age group of victims in 2020 were between 15 and 19 years of age.

“My hope was that through a post-mortem of one matter, we could obtain a better understanding of why 87 out of 100 women don’t report their experience?” he said.

Mr Drumgold said the inquiry could have examined issues unique to this case, such as:

— How does a complainant’s most private and intimate information, produced under compulsion for an investigation, become so widely and systematically weaponised in our media?

— What impact will this have on others thinking of reporting their matter?

— How do you balance confidentiality protections under the court process, with protections against the disclosure of journalistic sources?

— How does confidential information manage to get leaked and reported?

“Instead, the findings largely focused on myself,” he said.

The Sofronoff inquiry was scathing of Mr Drumgold’s conduct. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

“The Listen, Take action report revealed that in 2020 as a sample, less than 3 per cent of sexual offences reported resulted in charges being laid within a reasonable period.

“Even in a small jurisdiction such as the ACT these are large numbers. A review of police files of a period covering just 18 months revealed that it involved almost 750 complaints to ACT Police not proceeding to charge, 315 of which were by young people.”

Mr Drumgold said that no organisation or individual within a criminal justice system is responsible for systemic failings.

“Systems do not miraculously self-repair. If people in key roles such as a DPP do not call out failings, the system becomes a self-protecting cycle of systemic failure,” he said.

Mr Drumgold said he was provided with a copy of the Board’s final report late on Friday August 4, 2023 — well after the Board itself released it to members of the media.

Mr Drumgold speaking on day five of the board of inquiry public hearings. Picture: Supplied

“Having now read the report, I dispute many of its adverse findings about me,” he said.

“While I acknowledge I made mistakes, I strongly dispute that I engaged in deliberate or underhanded conduct in the trial or that I was dishonest.

“The findings relating to my forensic trial decisions are difficult to reconcile with those decisions having been made in the context of a robust adversarial process, with a strong and experienced defence team and an eminently qualified judge who presided over the trial. It is difficult to reconcile the findings with trial judge’s expression of gratitude at the end of the case, for the exemplary way all counsel conducted the trial.

“Although I accept my conduct was less than perfect, my decisions were all made in good faith, under intense and sometimes crippling pressure, conducted within increasingly unmanageable workloads.

“The pre-emptive release of the report to the media has denied me procedural fairness. It has deprived the ACT Government of the opportunity of considering my conduct objectively.

“My career has been driven by a fire burning within, lit by an early life spent surrounded by the pain of chronic intergenerational social injustice. This fire has fuelled a life that took me from a disadvantaged housing commission estate to an esteemed leadership role within the legal profession.

“Unfortunately, I find the fire has been extinguished, and try as I might, I cannot reignite it.

“Although I dispute many of the findings of the Inquiry, I accept that the premature publicity surrounding me means that my office, the courts and most importantly the ACT public, could not presently have faith in the discharge of the functions of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

“Accordingly, I have decided to retire from my role, effective September 1, 2023. I hope everyone involved in this matter finds peace — and I wish you all well.”

News.com.au does not suggest Mr Sofronoff’s actions constitute a breach of the law, or any wrongdoing by him.

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, who plans to sue over his prosecution, issued a statement, saying the ACT government needs to hold the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to account.

Mr Lehrmann remains an innocent man under the law, as he was never convicted before the trial collapsed following an allegation of juror misconduct.

“Given the alarming reading courageously reported by the media earlier in the week, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, in fact it is the least that could happen,” Mr Lehrmann said on Sunday.

“The response from the former Director is not acceptable, insufficient and not worth the paper it is written on.

“The ACT government now needs to show leadership and hold the ODPP to account. If they don’t I will.”

Mr Lehrmann’s barrister Steve Whybrow SC told news.com.au that Mr Drumgold’s statement “seemed to confirm what was blindingly apparent to the defence during the trial”.

“That he saw himself more as a social justice crusader than an independent minister for justice,” he said.

“This apparent ‘end justifies the means’ explanation for his conduct is frankly alarming coming from a DPP, a position which already wields so much opaque and unreviewable power over the lives of people who come into contact with the criminal justice system.”