Bruce Lehrmann is considering launching a multimillion-dollar claim for compensation against the ACT Department of Public Prosecutions.
The former Liberal staffer revealed his lawyers would prepare to claim damages and compensation from the ODPP and the ACT government.
The findings of the Sofronoff inquiry into Mr Lehrmann’s prosecution and aborted trial for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins are in the hands of the ACT government.
Chief ministers will now respond to what are expected to be serious adverse findings against the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold.
Mr Lehrmann has called for the report into potential misconduct to be released immediately after it was revealed the findings could be withheld for a month.
‘I will be guided by the report and call for its release as a matter of urgency,’ Mr Lehrmann told The Australian newspaper.
‘If it finds the director acted with malice or against his duties as DPP and as an officer of the court, I will be considering a multimillion claim for damages and compensation from the ODPP and the ACT government.’
Mr Lehrmann, who is already suing the ABC and Channel 10 for defamation, lashed the decision to suppress the findings of his abandoned prosecution last week.
Bruce Lehrmann has announced he is preparing to lodge a multimillion dollar claim for compensation against the ACT Department of Public Prosecutions
Mr Lehrmann, who is suing the ABC and Channel 10 for defamation, lashed the decision to suppress the findings of his abandoned prosecution last week (pictured)
He wrote to Instagram on Saturday: ‘Absolute disgrace! I remember someone saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant… The Drumgold protection racket continues. The chief minister should hang his head in shame.’
It had been expected the findings of the Sofronoff inquiry, lead by Walter Sofronoff KC, would be released immediately after being delivered on Monday.
But the ACT government will now consider the report ‘through a proper cabinet process’ that Chief Minister Andrew Barr said would take three to four weeks, with the Legislative Assembly ‘updated’ at the end of August.
Mr Lehrmann, a former political advisor, was accused of raping Brittany Higgins in Parliament House after a night out when they were colleagues in March 2019.
He has always strenuously denied the allegations.
Mr Lehrmann’s trial was aborted in October 2022 due to jury misconduct and Mr Drumgold later dropped the charges amid concerns about the impact a second trial could have on Ms Higgins’ mental health.
Ms Higgins was awarded what is believed to be over $2million in compensation from the Commonwealth after she complained of workplace mistreatment.
Brittany Higgins was awarded what is believed to be over $2million in compensation from the Commonwealth after she complained of workplace mistreatment
It is understood that at least two of the potential adverse findings against Mr Drumgold would form the grounds for his sacking from the role as top prosecutor.
Mr Drumgold has been on leave since May and is due to return at the end of August.
Mr Barr said that subject to the contents of the report, and any legal implications, he intended to table all, or part, of the report during the August parliamentary sitting.
‘Subject to the recommendations, a final government response may take several months,’ he said in a statement reported by The Australian last week.
The most serious allegations of misconduct against Mr Drumgold involve times where he misled Chief Justice Lucy McCallum during Mr Lehrmann’s prosecution.
Mr Drumgold has admitted two breaches but claimed they were unintentional.
It is believed Mr Sofronoff is likely to find Mr Drumgold was entitled to bring forward the prosecution against Mr Lehrmann, but both he and some senior police may be found to have lost objectivity at various points during the case.
At the inquiry, Mr Drumgold admitted he had formed the opinion that Mr Lehrmann should be charged before he had been interviewed.
Potentially the most serious allegation against Mr Drumgold relates to a note made of a conference he held with former host of The Project, Lisa Wilkinson, four days before her now infamous Logies speech.
Mr Drumgold said he had warned Ms Wilkinson about the danger of prejudicing Mr Lehrmann’s upcoming rape trial.
However, Ms Wilkinson rejects that, saying Mr Drumgold ‘did not at any time’ warn the speech would risk delaying the trial, as he claimed.
Chief ministers will now respond to what are expected to be serious adverse findings against the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, from the Sofronoff inquiry
Another major threat to Mr Drumgold’s position is from the so-called Moller report, which detailed discrepancies in Ms Higgins’s evidence and suggested police did not believe there was enough evidence to prosecute Mr Lehrmann.
Mr Drumgold tried to stop the defence from obtaining the document, claiming it was subject to legal professional privilege even though he had not read it and had not checked with its author, Detective Superintendent Scott Moller.
Mr Sofronoff could also make adverse findings about Mr Drumgold’s conduct when he announced in December that he was abandoning the trial out of concern for Ms Higgins’s mental health but suggested he still believed Mr Lehrmann was guilty.
The speech was met with shock by many in the legal profession.
Counsel assisting the inquiry Erin Longbottom asked Mr Drumgold: ‘Did you turn your mind to the impact that statement might have on Mr Lehrmann, who was entitled to the presumption of innocence?’
‘Possibly not as much as I should have,’ Mr Drumgold said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk