In Dictator Dan’s Victoria, the thoroughly-corrupted police force set out to “Get Pell” (their own words) long before a single complaint had ever been made against the late Cardinal. Then they insisted on proceeding with a brief of evidence Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions twice rejected. The result was that, as Australia’s highest court unanimously ruled, “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted”.
By contrast, the ACT police were clearly dismayed at that territory’s DPP’s insistence on persisting with the rape prosecution levied against former government staffer Bruce Lehrmann. So much so, in fact, that a senior detective allegedly threatened to resign in the event of a conviction.
This is just the latest bombshell revelation from the Sofronoff inquiry.
Steven Whybrow, SC, who defended Lehrmann against an allegation he sexually assaulted his colleague Brittany Higgins in March 2019, alleged in a statement tendered to an inquiry into the abandoned case that investigating officer Detective Inspector Marcus Boorman told him in a Canberra backstreet he would resign if the jury returned a guilty verdict.
Whybrow said in a statement submitted to the ACT government’s inquiry into the authorities’ handling of the case that while the jury was deliberating its verdict on October 25 last year, Boorman asked to meet with him out of sight of the prosecutors’ office so the pair couldn’t be seen speaking together.
“DI Boorman indicated to me that he was quite distressed about this prosecution and considered that Mr Lehrmann was innocent,” Whybrow said in his statement. “He made several other comments along these lines and I recall words to the effect ‘if the jury comes back with a guilty verdict, I’m resigning’.
If that sounds extraordinary: it is. Even for so experienced a barrister as Whybrow, a former prosecutor for 12 years.
“I had never before had a conversation with a police officer who had indicated that they were going to resign because they had been ordered to prosecute someone they considered was innocent.”
Once again, the first day of hearings for the inquiry is focussing on the conduct of the DPP.
Whybrow also said he was concerned Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold, SC, had lost his objectivity, and revealed the territory’s top prosecutor described the police investigating the case as “boofheads” whose evidence wasn’t admissible in court […]
Whybrow also said in his statement Drumgold had branded Reynolds and her former ministerial colleague Michaelia Cash – who also employed Higgins – as unfavourable, and said it was “grossly unfair” that he as the defence barrister was denied the opportunity to cross-examine Higgins on parts of the pair’s evidence that contradicted her own.
Whybrow also drew attention to the most glaringly obvious fact about the whole circus:
“This was a matter that, from the outset, was compromised by adverse media publicity,” Whybrow said.
“In my view the DPP failed to take adequate steps to either mitigate the adverse publicity or counsel Ms Higgins (or her supporters) to cease making public statements about the matter.”
He raised Higgins’ speech outside the ACT court complex the day the trial was aborted, in which she criticised the justice system and “falsely claimed” Lehrmann’s phone hadn’t been seized while hers had, as an example of conduct Drumgold failed to intervene in.
For his part, Drumgold wasn’t having any criticism of the accuser.
He described Moller’s written opinion of Higgins’ evidence, in which the officer described her as “evasive, unco-operative and manipulative,” as “gratuitous stereotype assessments of credibility”.
The inquiry heard Drumgold had advised against the disclosure of Moller’s report to the defence. Drumgold told the hearing the report would have been “crushing” to Higgins and inhibited her ability to participate in the trial.
Sydney Morning Herald
Well, yes.
As already reported for The BFD, the report which Drumgold tried to hide from the defence, by DS Scott Moller, highlights a litany of contradictions and apparently false statements by Higgins, as well as damning statements from other witnesses.
No wonder the DPP tried to keep it from the defence lawyers’ sight.
