Separately,the ACT Supreme Court on Friday ordered Sofronoff’s legal team to deliver any communications regarding his since-cancelled appearance at a media event to be hosted byThe Australian’s Hedley Thomas. Sofronoff’s lawyers had opposed their disclosure.
Walter Sofronoff,KC,who led the inquiry into the aborted Bruce Lehrmann trial.Robert Shakespeare
The event,promoted as a discussion of “politics,journalism and social media v the presumption of innocence”,was called off after it emerged that the former Queensland Supreme Court judge had to reporters fromThe Australianand the ABC.
It can be revealed that Sofronoff’s lawyers had already agreed to hand over text messages between Sofronoff and journalists he communicated with during the inquiry. According to sources familiar with the proceedings,that agreement was reached without the need for court orders.
The small win for Drumgold,who is,came as six Australian Federal Police officers who gave evidence to the inquiry attempted to intervene in the court action to defend their own reputations.
The case is one of several legal offshoots from Bruce Lehrmann’s high-profile Supreme Court trial. The former political staffer pleaded not guilty to raping his former colleague,Brittany Higgins,in Parliament House in 2019. The trial was ultimately aborted last year due to juror misconduct and a retrial was abandoned. Lehrmann maintains his innocence.
The ACT government launched the inquiry into the handling of the trial after a public falling out between Drumgold,who led the prosecution,and police,whom he accused of trying to undermine proceedings.
That allegation was found to be baseless by Sofronoff,who made several damning findings about Drumgold’s conduct,including that he had lied to the court in the lead-up to the trial,and had improperly questioned a high-profile witness,former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds.
some of Sofronoff’s findings against him were legally unreasonable,some were out of the inquiry’s jurisdiction and that he was not given a fair hearing in relation to others. Drumgold also alleges the leaking of the report denied him natural justice and gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias on the part of Sofronoff.
AFP officers Michael Chew,Scott Moller,Marcus Boorman,Robert Rose,Trent Madders and Emma Frizzell on Friday applied to join Drumgold’s court action as applicants,saying they wanted the inquiry’s findings to be maintained as they affected their reputations.
“Those findings and comments made in the report that relate to them … form part of a public record about matters relevant to their reputations and careers,” the police application states.
Kate Eastman SC,representing the police officers,asked to adjourn the hearing of the application due to the “large volume of material under the Inquiries Act” and all the records of the inquiry.
ACT Supreme Court Acting Justice Stephen Kaye adjourned the AFP officers’ application to December 15.
Sofronoff’s lawyer,John Sheahan KC,earlier argued there was no need for Drumgold to access communications about Sofronoff’s attendance at the media event,saying his admission that he had agreed to the event was enough evidence.
Former ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold.Rhett Wyman
“I can understand my learned friend’s curiosity … he’d rather know when and how and what the issues were … but this court is not conducting a commission of inquiry into the commission of inquiry,” he said.
But Dan O’Gorman SC,representing Drumgold,said Sofronoff’s admission did not go into the particulars of why he agreed.
Kaye asked Sheahan whether the evidence Drumgold’s lawyers already had would “capture of itself the communications for the organisation of that address”,to which Sheahan admitted it would not.
Kaye directed the board’s lawyers to hand over those communications.
The hearing continues.
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