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The prosecutor in the rape trial of former Coalition staffer Bruce Lehrmann says he “entirely misread” an exchange he had with high-profile journalist Lisa Wilkinson ahead of a controversial speech she made at the Logie awards that resulted in the trial being delayed.
Shane Drumgold said he should have listened further to Wilkinson when the former Ten journalist and presenter read to him what she proposed to say should she win a Logie award for a televised interview with Brittany Higgins in which the former Liberal adviser alleged she was raped by a colleague in Parliament House.
ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold arrives at the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal in Canberra on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“I had no idea a speech was going to be made,” Drumgold told a public inquiry into the handling of the trial. “I accept I entirely misread the situation … I thought this was someone telling me they were up for an award.”
Asked by the inquiry’s head, former Queensland Supreme Court judge Walter Sofronoff, whether “you thought she was bragging about being nominated”.
Drumgold replied: “That’s probably putting it a bit high, but of that flavour, yes.”
Lehrmann, who briefly worked with Higgins under former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds, stood trial last year on a count of sexual intercourse without consent, a charge to which he pleaded not guilty and has always maintained his innocence. The trial was aborted due to juror misconduct, and a retrial was abandoned due to Drumgold’s fears over Higgins’ mental health.
Lisa Wilkinson’s Logies acceptance speech, which referred to Brittany Higgins, led to Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial being delayed.Credit: Getty Images, Alex Ellinghausen
The ACT government inquiry is designed not to revisit the central allegations of the trial, but rather the conduct and competence of the authorities who investigated and prosecuted the allegations after Drumgold complained to the ACT’s chief police officer of a campaign to pressure him against prosecuting Lehrmann, and Lehrmann accused Drumgold of “pursuing the matter through the media” despite discontinuing the prosecution.
Lehrmann was watching the inquiry in the public gallery of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Monday.
The exchange between Wilkinson and Drumgold occurred in a video conference in June 2022 set up to talk about Wilkinson’s evidence as a slated Crown witness in Lehrmann’s trial, but during which Wilkinson had mentioned she would be potentially making a speech on the subject.
Drumgold allegedly told Wilkinson “we are not speech editors” after she read the first line of the address she intended to give at the Logies.
“We have no power to approve or prohibit any public comment, that is the role of the court,” Drumgold was quoted as saying in the transcribed notes, in which he says, however, that further publicity could give the defence grounds to lodge a stay application.
Under questioning by Sofronoff, Drumgold said when he conveyed those words to Wilkinson and her lawyer via video conference, the pair pushed mute and had a discussion, from which he said he was “quite confident” they understood Wilkinson couldn’t give the speech.
On June 19, just over a week before the trial’s scheduled date, Wilkinson was awarded a Logie for her interview with Higgins and delivered the acceptance speech. It triggered an application by Lehrmann’s defence team to halt the proceedings, which trial judge ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum delayed until October, adding Wilkinson had “praised” Higgins ahead of the trial despite a previous warning.
Brittany Higgins, centre, accused Lehrmann of sexual assault, leading to a trial that was ultimately aborted.Credit: AAP
The inquiry was also shown multiple emails from Wilkinson’s lawyer Marlia Saunders to Drumgold last year, in which Saunders said Wilkinson felt she had been treated unfairly by Drumgold when he did not publicly confirm her conduct at the Logies didn’t amount to contempt of court and he wouldn’t be pursuing any charges.
Saunders said the intense media focus was the reason behind Wilkinson’s decision to quit The Project.
Drumgold said he decided against making a public statement regarding Wilkinson because he didn’t want to feed the “media storm”.
He said what he was being asked was “completely beyond my remit” and that he wasn’t a publicist for Wilkinson.
It was also put to Drumgold that he had a phone conversation with Saunders while the jury in the trial had retired to deliberate, in which he said, “the intense media coverage is new to me”. He said he didn’t recall.
The inquiry also heard that Drumgold told Saunders that the “narrative may change” to one of political interference, an accusation that later surfaced in an email Drumgold sent to police complaining of their conduct in the case, however, he said he couldn’t recollect saying anything to that effect.
Drumgold denied early during the hearing that he had lost his objectivity in the case.
Sofronoff accused Drumgold of making false statements to McCallum during the defence application regarding the transcribed notes.
Drumgold was taken to an exchange with McCallum in which he said notes that had been made during a conversation in which Wilkinson said she intended to give the speech were made contemporaneously by a subordinate.
Counsel assisting the inquiry Erin Longbottom KC put to Drumgold those statements to McCallum were knowingly false, which Drumgold denied.
Sofronoff then grilled Drumgold over the note, with the latter eventually agreeing that he had added the exchange with Wilkinson over the speech to the notes after she had given the address.
“Therefore the answer you gave to Her Honour was false,” Sofronoff said, to which Drumgold initially denied before conceding, “I didn’t turn my mind to that level of detail” when speaking to the judge. “This was a sudden application, we were exchanging words quite quickly,” Drumgold told the inquiry.
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