The text messages between The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen and former Queensland judge Walter Sofronoff prior to the release of his report in July last year have been released by the ACT Supreme Court.
The dated interactions between Albrechtsen and Sofronoff, who was leading the inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann in 2022, confirm that Albrechtsen had access to drafts of the inquiry report days before it was handed to the government.
According to the court documents released by the ACT Supreme Court today, Albrechtsen told Sofronoff she “loved the section” in his report on “the presumption of innocence”. And once the report was made public, Sofronoff contacted The Australian saying he was “grateful” for Albrechtsen’s editorial, saying it was important to “address the evil wrought by a prosecutor who was eager … to jail a man who may be innocent”.
The text messages released by the ACT Supreme Court were part of a civil trial that took place after Sofronoff’s report, launched by former Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold.
Over the seven months of the inquiry, according to the ACT Supreme Court, Albrechtsen and Sofronoff had 273 interactions over email, text and phone call.
What’s the story?
Sofronoff was leading the inquiry into the prosecution of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, who faced a criminal trial in 2022 on allegations that he raped his colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence, and the criminal trial was ultimately abandoned after juror misconduct.
Later that year, in December 2022, the ACT government launched an inquiry, headed by Walter Sofronoff, into the conduct of criminal justice agencies during the prosecution of Lehrmann.
In February 2023, Janet Albrechtsen was introduced to Sofronoff via email by The Australian’s national chief correspondent, Hedley Thomas. Thomas described Albrechtsen as “a lawyer and a conservative columnist for The Oz for many years” who was “scrupulously straight and professional”.
“Janet has been doing much of the post-verdict reporting and commentary on the Higgins case, including breaking several recent and very interesting stories about complaints being levelled against the DPP,” the email read.
“I think it would be fair to speculate that Janet’s relationship with the defence team in the Higgins case would be much more rosy than with the DPP.”
Most of Albrechtsen’s columns in the News Corp masthead were critical of Shane Drumgold, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and lead prosecutor of Bruce Lehrmann during the 2022 criminal trial.
The text messages
After interactions here and there – including Sofronoff telling Albrechtsen it was “truly, a pleasure to engage” in April – Albrechtsen asked Sofronoff on July 12 for “copies of potential adverse findings” in his report. She clarified it was “not for reporting”.
Sofronoff told Albrechtsen to email her with “proposed findings”.
Albrechtsen then texted Sofronoff two days later saying she would “love an embargoed copy” of his report. He responded saying he would not deliver the report sooner than July 31 to the government, but it was “ok” to send an embargoed copy.
On July 28, Sofronoff sent an email to Albrechtsen with the “draft as it currently stands” of the inquiry report, On July 30, he sent a draft of the first chapter of the report.
Albrechtsen responded via text to Sofronoff: “I loved the section towards the end of your report on presumption of innocence (my editor side coming in now – I’d put that up front – when I read it, I wished I had read it much earlier – it’s an important and clear exposition of the legal principle and the norm).”
The report was given to the government on July 31 and wasn’t publicly released until August 7. Two days later, Sofronoff contacted The Australian and said he was “grateful” for the editorial on the report.
Sofronoff, while finding the prosecution was properly brought against Lehrmann, made damning findings against Drumgold in his final report. The former DPP ultimately challenged these findings, claiming Sofronoff’s communications with Albrechtsen occasioned an “apprehension of bias”. Drumgold was successful in his legal challenge.
While the ACT government criticised Sofronoff for providing embargoed copies of his report to Albrechtsen and an ABC journalist, The Australian maintains it did not breach the embargo. The masthead has not revealed its sources from stories around the report that were published before the embargo lifted.