Consider theremarks of ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold,SC. On announcing the charge against Lehrmann was to be dropped,Drumgold praised the “bravery,grace and dignity” of Higgins,and asked that she be given time “to heal” after facing “a level of personal attack that I’ve not seen in over 20 years of doing this work”.
While this may be true,there is a serious question as to whether it is appropriate for a DPP,who has a duty to the administration of justice rather than to individual complainants,to make public remarks of this kind. Drumgold said nothing of the presumption of innocence or whether Lehrmann may also need time “to heal”. Nor should he have. And that is the point.
And what of the substance of Drumgold’s observations? Has he ever seen a sexual assault complainant consciously eschew the protection of anonymity that is legally available to every sexual assault complainant in ACT criminal proceedings? If the answer is “no”,or “only on a very limited number of occasions”,Drumgold’s placement of Higgins’ experience on a spectrum of 20 years of practice is meaningless.
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The fact is there was nothing normal about the Lehrmann trial,which occurred under a glare of unceasing publicity. Such matters are invariably tried in conditions of anonymity,which is a statutory right afforded to the complainant.
There have been other public servants whose conduct in relation to these matters has been questionable.Scott Morrison’s notorious parliamentary apology to Higgins plumbed a new depth. Whatever political advantage Morrison perceived,the potential prejudice that could have been occasioned to a fair trial by a person of the prime minister’s stature in making a comment of this kind,before a jury was even empanelled,is impossible to miss.
This occurred against the backdrop of alleged “political interference” in the investigation stage of the Lehrmann case,according to the ACT police manager of criminal investigations,Detective Superintendent Scott Moller (who says he would not have charged Lehrmann,but the decision was apparently taken out of his hands). This chilling allegation by a senior AFP officer warrants a full accounting of the “political interference” being referred to,particularly given the implicitly political context in which the trial unfolded.