The ACT government has published an initial response to an inquiry into the handling of Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial.
REPORT INTO LEHRMANN CASE:
* The ACT government has agreed to eight of 10 recommendations and agreed in principle to two further matters.
* The report found it was appropriate to prosecute the matter, on the information available to ACT Policing and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
* However, ACT DPP Shane Drumgold, whose concerns in November 2022 sparked the inquiry, has stepped down from the role.
* The report included what inquiry chair Walter Sofronoff described as “serious findings of misconduct” by Mr Drumgold. But Mr Sofronoff accepted it was not part of his remit to determine whether the DPP was a “fit and proper person” to remain a barrister or DPP.
* A government review of the 18 criminal cases Mr Drumgold conducted, or in which he participated in, since his appointment as DPP in 2019 found “no more detailed examination is warranted”.
* ACT police officers “accomplished a thorough investigation … (but) made some mistakes”. None of the mistakes affected the substance of the investigation and none of them prejudiced the case.
* The board of inquiry chair provided his report to media organisations, one of which received it before the ACT chief minister – a move the government considered interfered with due process. The government is seeking advice on whether the release breached the Inquiries Act.
* The government may change the Inquiries Act to strengthen non-disclosure provisions.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO BE ACTED ON
* Training of police officers on the handling of counselling notes, the threshold to charge someone over sexual offences and the adjudication process.
* Law change to ban the disclosure of protected confidences at the investigation stage of the criminal process.
* Updating the ACT’s prosecutions policy to provide a process for recording retrial decisions.
* Set up a new complaints mechanism involving the DPP and ACT Policing.
* Police are to inform a complainant once a decision to charge has been reached, unless it would prejudice an investigation or a matter more generally.
