DPP Shane Drumgold resigns in wake of misconduct findings
ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold has launched a broadside against the Sofronoff Inquiry as he resigned in the wake of the board’s findings of misconduct against him.
ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold has launched a broadside against the Sofronoff Inquiry as he resigned in the wake of the board’s damning findings of misconduct against him, acknowledging his position was untenable.
Mr Drumgold conceded he made “mistakes” in his prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins but rejected the key findings of Walter Sofronoff KC that he had lied to the Supreme Court and engaged in serious malpractice and grossly unethical conduct. “Having now read the report, I dispute many of the adverse findings about me,” Mr Drumgold said in a statement on Sunday.
“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.”
However, Mr Drumgold’s troubles are not over. He may be struck off the roll of barristers and could face charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice or the common law offence of misconduct in public office.
Deputy DPP Anthony Williamson SC has been acting in the position since Mr Drumgold went on extended leave in May and is a firm favourite to keep the top job.
One of the first issues he will face is whether – and how – to proceed with possible criminal charges against his former boss.
The government will almost certainly have to appoint an outside prosecutor to consider the case, to avoid a conflict of interest.
Mr Drumgold said he had been provided a copy of the Sofronoff report late on Friday, almost 48 hours after The Australian published the leaked findings.
ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury said he had spoken to Mr Drumgold and that “in light of the commentary in the report” the pair had “agreed that his position as Director of Public Prosecutions was no longer tenable”. Mr Drumgold’s resignation will take effect on September 1 but he is not expected to return to work in the meantime, with the government poised to release the report and make a detailed statement this week, possibly as early as Monday.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr will be under pressure to outline the terms of Mr Drumgold’s departure, including any payout, and to respond to growing demands for an inquiry into previous criminal cases prosecuted by Mr Drumgold.
Mr Barr has declined to respond to questions from The Australian about whether he would institute a review or audit of criminal cases handled by Mr Drumgold. Mr Barr also declined to state whether his government was confident that Mr Drumgold had handled all previous cases he prosecuted as ACT DPP in an ethical and lawful manner.
Mr Drumgold’s resignation marks a momentous fall from grace that began when he wrote to the ACT police chief demanding an inquiry into what he alleged was police misconduct in the Lehrmann case – only to be found by that inquiry to have engaged in gross misconduct himself.
Mr Sofronoff ruled that every one of the allegations made by Mr Drumgold that sparked the inquiry was baseless and that the chief prosecutor “did not act with fairness and detachment as was required by his role”.
“The result has been a public inquiry, which was not justified by any of his allegations, that has caused lasting pain to many people and which has demonstrated his allegations to be not just incorrect, but wholly false and without any rational basis,” Mr Sofronoff concluded. “The cost of a six-month public inquiry – in time and money, in lost work, and personal and professional consequences – has been huge.”
Mr Sofronoff said he was “deeply disturbed” by Mr Drumgold’s ignorance of ethical principles and accused him of a “Pilate-like detachment”, invoking the moment Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus’s fate.
The departing DPP hit back on Sunday, saying the Sofronoff Inquiry could have delivered a “seminal moment” in the way institutions dealt with allegations of sexual violence but “instead the findings largely focused on myself”. “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,” Mr Drumgold said.
“My career has been driven by a fire burning within, lit by an early life spent surrounded by the pain of chronic inter-generational social justice. 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.”
Mr Drumgold complained that “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.”
However, his parting statement was condemned by Mr Lehrmann’s defence counsel, Steven Whybrow SC, who gave evidence at the inquiry.
“Mr Drumgold’s statement seems 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,” Mr Whybrow said.
“This apparent ‘end justifies the means’ explanation for his conduct is frankly alarming coming from a DPP.”
Mr Lehrmann said Mr Drumgold’s resignation “shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone” and that his response was “not acceptable, insufficient and not worth the paper it is written on”. “The ACT government now needs to show leadership and hold the Office of the DPP to account. If they don’t I will,” he said.
Mr Lehrmann has already foreshadowed a multimillion-dollar claim against the ODPP.
In his report Mr Sofronoff found that Mr Drumgold had made representations to Chief Justice Lucy McCallum in the proceedings against Mr Lehrmann that were “untrue” and “an invention of his own”.
Mr Sofronoff found the DPP was guilty of a “serious breach of duty” by failing to disclose documents where there was “simply no doubt” that those police investigation documents should have been disclosed and that he “constructed a false narrative to support a claim of legal professional privilege”.
Even if Mr Drumgold had succeeded in dishonestly preventing Mr Lehrmann from obtaining material that could have helped his defence, any conviction would have been set aside on the ground of a miscarriage of justice, Mr Sofronoff concluded.
The only substantial finding by the inquiry in Mr Drumgold’s favour was that he was justified in bringing the prosecution against Mr Lehrmann. However, no one, including the police, had submitted he was wrong to do so.
Mr Sofronoff found police investigators and their immediate superior officers “performed their duties in absolute good faith, with great determination although faced with obstacles”.
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