Shane Drumgold’s position as ACT Director of Public Prosecutions is proving tenuous amid intense questioning at Walter Sofronoff inquiry

Illustration: Johannes Leak

Last Friday, ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury declined an invitation to express confidence in his Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold SC. Mr Rattenbury’s spokesman said the board of inquiry chaired by Walter Sofronoff KC into the ACT’s justice system was still under way and the government would allow it to complete its work.

That said, after Mr Drumgold finishes giving evidence it will be difficult for him to return to his day job pending Mr Sofronoff’s report on July 31.

It is clear Mr Drumgold’s relationship with the Australian Federal Police has broken down. In his incendiary November letter to the ACT chief police officer, Mr Drumgold said he wanted a public inquiry into police handling of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations against Bruce Lehrmann.

He got it, and more.

Shane Drumgold SC speaking on day five of public hearings.

DPP Shane Drumgold returns to the witness box on Tuesday.

One key issue centres on Mr Drumgold trying to prevent the Moller Report, prepared by police as part of the investigation into the rape allegation, from being disclosed to lawyers of defendant Mr Lehrmann.

Mr Drumgold said last week he might have “unintentionally” misled the ACT Supreme Court over an affidavit seeking to prevent the Moller Report being given to the defence team.

Mr Drumgold acknowledged he had claimed the Moller Report was privileged without having seen it and without checking with Detective Superintendent Scott Moller, who wrote it. In doing so, lawyers argue, Mr Drumgold went against a basic duty of a prosecutor to disclose any relevant evidence, particularly matters adverse to their case, to the defence.

Mr Drumgold also conceded he misled ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum, but “not intentionally”, in telling her that a note of his discussion with TV presenter Lisa Wilkinson over her upcoming Logies speech was contemporaneous when it was not.

More seriously, Mr Drumgold was admonished by Mr Sofronoff for failing to correct the record earlier about his serious claims that it was “possible, or even probable” that political pressure was brought to bear on the police to suppress the prosecution of Mr Lehrmann.

“Mr Drumgold, for the director of prosecutions to say ‘I hold a suspicion that it’s possible that a minister tried to get at the commissioner to stop a prosecution’ is a pretty serious thing to say,” Mr Sofronoff told him.

On Monday, Steven Whybrow SC, for Mr Lehrmann, said Mr Drumgold was meant to act as an “objective minister for justice” and not a solicitor for Ms Higgins. Yet when Mr Drumgold announced he was dropping the rape charge against Mr Whybrow’s client, his speech conveyed that Mr Lehrmann was “really guilty in his view”.

Mr Drumgold will take the stand again on Tuesday.