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Five federal police officers are suing the Australian Capital Territory government and Shane Drumgold for $1.42m over the former director of public prosecutions’ complaint about the handling of Bruce Lehrmann’s prosecution.
In December 2022 Guardian Australia revealed that Drumgold had written to the ACT detective superintendent Scott Moller shortly after the trial’s collapse, saying he held concerns that police were politically influenced and had aligned themselves with the defence.
Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to raping Brittany Higgins, his former Liberal staffer colleague, on the minister Linda Reynold’s couch in Parliament House in 2019. The criminal trial was abandoned due to juror misconduct and Lehrmann maintains his innocence.
In April a federal court judge found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann had raped Higgins.
Drumgold wrote in his letter that there had been “consistent and inappropriate interference by investigators, firstly directed towards my independence with a very clear campaign to pressure me to agree with the investigators’ desire not to charge, then during the conduct of this trial itself, and finally attempting to influence any decision on a retrial”.
In their statement of claim to the federal court submitted in April, the officers say the allegations made in the 1 November 2022 letter went to the heart of their standing as police officers and brought them into “public disrepute, odium, ridicule and contempt”.
“Within the AFP, a police officer’s professional reputation is critical to his or her career success and ability to effectively engage with members of the community,” the document said.
Moller and his colleagues, a detective inspector, Marcus Boorman, a deputy chief police officer, Michael Chew, a detective leading senior constable, Trent Madders, and a senior constable, Emma Frizzell, allege that Drumgold defamed them on two occasions – when he sent the letter to the AFP and again when he released the letter to Guardian Australia in response to an FoI request.
They also say the ACT government is “vicariously liable” for Drumgold’s “misfeasance” in public office.
If successful, Boorman could receive the most in damages and economic loss at $415,000, followed by Moller, who is seeking $350,000. In total, the five officers could receive at least $1.415m.
An ACT government spokesperson said it acknowledged “that proceedings have been commenced” but said it would not be appropriate to respond.
Guardian Australia contacted lawyers for the officers for a response. Drumgold’s lawyer declined to comment.
Drumgold’s letter also accused Reynolds of “disturbing conduct” during the trial. The Liberal senator was awarded $70,000 in damages, $20,000 in legal costs and an apology from the ACT government in March after launching legal action.
The publication of the letter’s claims partly led to the establishment of a board of inquiry into the ACT’s investigation into Higgins’ rape allegation and the subsequent trial.
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Led by a former Queensland judge, Walter Sofronoff, the inquiry made a number of serious findings against Drumgold in July 2023, including he “at times … lost objectivity and did not act with fairness and detachment”.
Sofronoff ruled out political influence or interference playing a role in the investigation or trial, instead praising police conduct.
Drumgold, who resigned in August shortly after the inquiry’s final report, challenged many of Sofronoff’s findings against him in the ACT supreme court, alleging that the inquiry had failed to give him a fair hearing, denied him natural justice, breached the law and “gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias”.
While Drumgold was unsuccessful in challenging all of the misconduct findings, Justice Stephen Kaye ruled in March that Sofronoff’s extensive interactions with the Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen gave the impression he “might have been influenced by the views held and publicly expressed” by her.
The court heard that, while leading the inquiry, Sofronoff had 273 interactions with Albrechtsen between January and July 2023, including 51 phone calls, text messages, emails and a private lunch meeting in Brisbane.
Call logs submitted to court showed the former judge had spent seven and a half hours on the phone with journalists from the Australian over the seven-month period, most of them with Albrechtsen.
The ACT integrity commissioner, Michael Adams, will investigate whether Sofronoff acted corruptly by leaking his final report on the Lehrmann trial to select journalists before its official release.
Guardian Australia has contacted Sofronoff for a response.
– additional reporting by Paul Karp