The chief prosecutor in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann has admitted he “misread the situation” in a meeting with Lisa Wilkinson discussing her acceptance speech for a Logie award.
But the ACT director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, denies making “knowingly false” statements to a court during a push by Lehrmann to halt the case.
Drumgold was the first witness at an independent inquiry investigating the prosecution of Lehrmann, who was accused of sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins.
The inquiry was established by the ACT government after it said there had been a “number of complaints and allegations” about the trial.
Lehrmann has consistently denied allegations that he raped Higgins, a colleague and fellow political staffer, in the office of then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019. He pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity had occurred.
A first trial was abandoned after a juror brought in outside research papers on sexual assault and in December 2022 Drumgold announced that a planned retrial would not go ahead because of fears about Higgins’s health.
Drumgold was questioned on Monday by counsel assisting the inquiry, Erin Longbottom KC, about an application made by Lehrmann for a stay in the case after television presenter Lisa Wilkinson gave a Logies speech referencing the matter.
The stay application was heard in June 2022, only days after the speech was made.
Longbottom told the inquiry on Monday that Drumgold had made “knowingly false” statements during the stay hearing in the ACT supreme court.
She said he had done so while being questioned about a file note referring to a previous meeting Drumgold had with Wilkinson.
Longbottom said Drumgold had told the court that the note was contemporaneous despite a section being added after the meeting and that a prosecutor’s associate had made the change when he had actually done so.
But Drumgold denied the statements were knowingly false.
When asked to clarify this by Walter Sofronoff, who is heading the inquiry, Drumgold said they were made in “error”.
He later said that “in a perfect world” he should have gone back to check who had contributed what to the file note, but that in the nature of a “fast moving” application he had not considered it in court.
Wilkinson had an online meeting with the prosecution in Lehrmann’s case on 15 June 2022 to prepare her for the possibility of being a witness in the trial.
Drumgold was told during the meeting that Wilkinson was nominated for the Gold Logie for her interview with Higgins, but did not expect to win when the awards were announced days later as they were “managed by a rival network”, according to an email referred to in the inquiry.
Wilkinson had mentioned a planned acceptance speech, according to notes of the meeting, but Drumgold told her “we are not speech editors” and “we have no power to approve or prohibit any public comment”, as that was the role of the court.
But the notes also state that Drumgold told Wilkinson that the defence could apply for a stay in the case if there was any publicity regarding it.
Drumgold on Monday told the inquiry that he felt he had properly conveyed the risk of commenting publicly, even though Wilkinson and her lawyer had discussed this advice while muted.
But he said he should have been more explicit.
“I would accept that I entirely misread the situation,” he said.
“I thought this was somebody telling me they were up for an award for doing an interview … I was not, to my mind, dealing with the real issue.”
Longbottom said a lawyer for Wilkinson subsequently spoke to Drumgold on multiple occasions about concerns the television personality had about how her Logies speech had been presented in the media, including suggestions she had committed contempt of court and ignored a direct warning from him not to give the speech.
The inquiry heard that after a series of exchanges, including several calls and emails it appeared Drumgold had not responded to, the lawyer sent an email to Drumgold on 6 December 2022 asking when she could speak with him.
Drumgold agreed with Longbottom that it did not appear he had responded, but said it occurred only days after a newspaper report “essentially accused me of misconduct in office” so he “would have been a little bit distracted at that time” because of an inundation of media requests.
Another major concern, he said, was “waiting for a call telling me something terrible had happened to Ms Higgins … as a result of the media flurry”.
Wilkinson’s lawyer sent another email a week later, outlining that Wilkinson felt she had been treated unfairly by Drumgold’s office as he had not “corrected the record” about the meeting and not publicly confirmed that he would not charge her with contempt regarding the speech.
Drumgold also didn’t respond to this email, but said he felt the requests in the email were beyond his remit.
“I’m not a publicist. I’m the director of public prosecutions,” he said.
The hearing continues.
