An inquiry into the Bruce Lehrmann trial has found that Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, “knowingly lied” to the ACT supreme court.
The inquiry, led by Walter Sofronoff KC, found that Drumgold had lied to the court when he said he had warned journalist Lisa Wilkinson about the possible repercussions of her Logies speech.
The 600-page report into the case was leaked to The Australian, who published its impression of the findings against Drumgold on Wednesday night. The newspaper said the findings of the report were significant enough to spell the end of Drumgold’s career as the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Drumgold had always said that he’d warned Wilkinson about the possibility of her Logies speech prejudicing Lehrmann’s trial, while Wilkinson has maintained that this was not the case.
According to The Australian, Drumgold presented a note to Chief Justice Lucy McCallum that suggested he had warned Wilkinson about the speech four days before she delivered it. When asked if the note had been written contemporaneously by a junior lawyer, Drumgold said it had.
Sofronoff found that the note was updated only after Wilkinson had already delivered the Logies speech, and that the note was “nothing more than a copy of an email which Mr Drumgold had written five days after the meeting and which purported only to record his ‘best recollection’.”
“For the Chief Justice’s purposes, the note was not contemporaneous,’’ the report said, according to The Australian.
“I reject that a prudent and experienced barrister would behave in that way or make a mistake of this calibre. This is a wholly untenable excuse for a barrister of the seniority and experience of Mr Drumgold.”
Drumgold has been on leave since May, after giving evidence at the inquiry.
The inquiry comes after Lehremann faced trial in October 2022, with the case not reaching a verdict after juror misconduct. The charges were later dropped over concerns about the mental health of Brittany Higgins.
Lehrmann has always denied the allegation that he raped Higgins in 2019.