The Australian Capital Territory’s attorney general, Shane Rattenbury, says he fears the unprecedented public scrutiny surrounding the Bruce Lehrmann case has had a “chilling effect” on other potential rape complainants, saying it is “one of the really terrible outcomes of the way this entire matter has played out”.
Rattenbury has also revealed he remains concerned that the low rates of reporting of sexual assault allegations in the territory remain largely unaddressed following the Sofronoff inquiry, saying there may be a need to examine systemic issues in another form of inquiry.
“I don’t think those issues have been as openly addressed as they could have been, whether this forum [the Sofronoff inquiry] was the right place to do that, or whether we need something bigger, like an Australian Law Reform Commission response, is another matter,” Rattenbury told the Guardian.
The fallout from the damning findings of the Sofronoff inquiry, and their premature publication, continued on Tuesday, with police, the police union and the ACT government seeking to restore community confidence in the justice system.
The report was scathing of the conduct of Shane Drumgold, the ACT’s director of public prosecutions, and found police made errors and misunderstood when to proceed with sexual assault cases. The report was handed to the chief minister last week, who was planning to take a month to consider his response, prior to publication of the findings in News Corp and the ABC.
Rattenbury told the Guardian that, before the premature publications, he had planned to write to Drumgold, advise him that he was planning to invoke a section of the DPP Act that allows for the removal of directors, and then invite him to respond.
Rattenbury would then have made a decision about Drumgold’s position.
Before that process could take place, the Sofronoff inquiry’s findings were publicly reported.
The pair spoke the day after the publications and agreed Drumgold’s position was no longer tenable. Drumgold penned a letter announcing his resignation the next day.
Rattenbury and the chief minister, Andrew Barr, were scathing of Walter Sofronoff’s conduct and are now taking advice on whether he has breached the Inquiries Act, which contains clear requirements that a final report is only to be handed to Barr himself.
Rattenbury said the Lehrmann case was unique in its attraction of significant media scrutiny, and predicted it would be “a long time until it is seen again”. But he said he was concerned of a “chilling effect” on some in the community.
“What I am concerned about is that this whole process is likely to make people even more reluctant to come forward,” he said. “Witnessing what has happened in this matter, anyone who is sitting at home thinking about reporting a matter, I fear they could think ‘well, I don’t want to subject myself to that process’.
“For me, that is one of the really terrible outcomes of the way this entire matter has played out, and I’m not seeking to comment on the specific trial of this specific matter between [Brittany] Higgins and [Bruce] Lehrmann, but of the broader political and social way that it has played out.”
Lehrmann pleaded not guilty and has consistently and vehemently denied the allegation that he raped Higgins. His first trial was aborted due to juror misconduct and a planned retrial was not pursued due to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.
Lehrmann has also signalled that he will have more to say about the ACT government’s response in an upcoming interview on Channel Seven’s Spotlight program.
“I have plenty to say after [Monday’s] mess of a press conference but I’ll wait until I sit down with Liam Bartlett again this Sunday on 7News Spotlight,” he said.
Drumgold has acknowledged he made mistakes but says he disputes many of the inquiry’s findings, and said he had not engaged in deliberate or underhanded conduct, or that he was dishonest.
“The findings relating to my forensic trial decisions are difficult to reconcile with those decisions having been made in the context of a robust adversarial process, with a strong and experienced defence team and an eminently qualified judge who presided over the trial,” he said. “It is difficult to reconcile the findings with trial judge’s expression of gratitude at the end of the case, for the exemplary way all counsel conducted the trial.”
