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A senior police officer made “gratuitous” and “pejorative” comments relating to Brittany Higgins that would have been crushing to her if they had been disclosed, the ACT director of public prosecutions has told an inquiry.
The director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold SC, is the first witness at an independent inquiry investigating the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann, who was accused of sexually assaulting Higgins.
The inquiry was established by the ACT government after it said there had been a “number of complaints and allegations” about the trial.
Drumgold was questioned on Tuesday by counsel assisting the inquiry, Erin Longbottom KC, about his decision not to disclose certain documents produced by police investigating Higgins’s complaint to Lehrmann’s lawyers.
One of those documents, known as the Moller report, was prepared by detective superintendent Scott Moller in June 2021.
Drumgold said the report contained “somebody just offering gratuitous stereotyping of credibility” and showed a “strong bias”, as well as “pejorative comments” in relation to Higgins.
He said that he felt it was not relevant to disclose, but also felt it would be potentially seriously harmful to the case and “crushing” to Higgins.
But Drumgold conceded he “clearly” made an error in deciding that another document provided by the Australian federal police should not be disclosed to Lehrmann’s team.
That document was a review of the investigation completed after the Moller report.
Drumgold also told the inquiry he was “shocked” when he was informed by John Korn, a lawyer for Lehrmann, that police investigating Higgins’s case had provided Korn with the brief of evidence in August 2021.
He said he had never experienced police serving a brief of evidence on an accused before a plea had been entered in a case. The decision had been made so quickly, he said, that he felt it would be unlikely proper checks of the evidence had been completed.
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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.
The hearing before Walter Sofronoff KC continues.
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