Judge releases reasons for keeping Rolfe documents from prosecutors

Chief Justice Michael Grant has revealed his reasons for denying access to documents sought by prosecutors in the murder trial of NT police officer Zach Rolfe.

CHIEF Justice Michael Grant has revealed his reasons for denying access to documents sought by prosecutors in the murder trial of NT police officer Zach Rolfe.

Rolfe is due to face trial in the Supreme Court later this month over the shooting death of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu in November 2019.

In his reasons, the Chief Justice said the NT Police Association had retained lawyer Ray Murphy to advise the other police officers involved in the fatal operation.

In February this year, the Crown subpoenaed documents relating to those discussions which was opposed on the grounds they were protected by lawyer/client privilege.

Both Rolfe’s defence team and Mr Murphy agreed the documents would be provided to the court for inspection by Chief Justice Grant, who last week ruled they should not be turned over to prosecutors.

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He said the documents contained records of conversations with the five police officers – Julie Frost, Adam Eberl, Anthony Hawkins, James Kirstenfeldt and Adam Donaldson – in the days following the shooting, as well as NTPA staff.

“There is no doubt that the telephone attendances and email communications between Mr Murphy and the police officers by whom he was engaged to provide legal advice were confidential communications made between the client and a lawyer for the dominant purpose of providing legal advice to the client,” he said.

“The Police Association was not a client in the sense of it receiving legal advice in respect of its own personal interests.

“The Police Association is perhaps best characterised as an agent of the officers in the more general sense of that term.”

Chief Justice Michael Grant has revealed his reasons for denying access to documents sought by prosecutors in the murder trial of NT police officer Zach Rolfe, pictured. Picture: Kym Smith

Chief Justice Grant said Mr Murphy likely provided an account of the shooting given to him by some of the officers to the NTPA with their consent, which raised the possibility they had waived their right to legal privilege. But he ruled “a voluntary disclosure of privileged communications to a third party will not necessarily waive privilege”.

“In this particular case, there was no inconsistency between the maintenance of the privilege by the police officers concerned and the communication of their instructions to the Police Association,” he said. “As already stated, the Police Association was properly characterised as their agent in the general sense, the police officers have not made any case or assertion about the matter and the maintenance of the privilege gives rise to no specific unfairness.”