The respected former judge who led the Board of Inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann engaged in ‘serious corrupt conduct’, the ACT Integrity Commission has found.
The corruption watchdog investigated retired Queensland judge Walter Sofronoff over his dealings with two journalists while conducting his inquiry into the failed Crown case against Lehrmann in 2023.
Mr Sofronoff gave his final report to The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen and the ABC’s Elizabeth Byrne before it was officially released by the ACT government.
The inquiry found handing over the report ‘threatened public confidence’ in his inquiry’s processes – along with the judgements made in his report – and fell within ‘several elements of the definition of “corrupt conduct”.’
‘[Mr Sofronoff’s] disclosure of the report itself to journalists before it had been publicly released contravened the requirement of the Inquiries Act,’ the commission’s findings said.
The report should have gone exclusively to the Chief Minister to rule on the timing and extent of publication, subject to the role of the Legislative Assembly, it said.
‘The disclosures were dishonestly concealed from persons involved in the Inquiry, in particular [former ACT chief prosecutor Shane] Drumgold and the [ACT] Chief Minister, which prevented them taking protective legal action,’ the findings added.
‘This impugned conduct constituted the exercise of Mr Sofronoff’s official functions in a way that was not impartial, significantly compromised the integrity of the Inquiry constituting a breach of public trust.
‘And, in respect of his communications with Ms (Janet) Albrechtsen, gave rise to an apprehension of bias that affected his findings about Mr Drumgold. That conduct could have justified Mr Sofronoff’s removal from the Inquiry.’
The ACT Integrity Commission found respected former judge Walter Sofronoff engaged in ‘serious corrupt conduct’ while leading a Board of Inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann
The corruption watchdog found Mr Sofronoff has act inappropriately during with interactions with The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (pictured)
The investigation also criticised Mr Sofronoff over his decision to give the ABC’s Elizabeth Byrne a copy of his final report under embargo
The report noted Sofronoff maintained his interactions had ‘complied with the requirements of the Inquiries Act’.
‘Mr Sofronoff claimed that his conduct complied with the requirements of the Inquiries Act, and that he had acted in the public interest to ensure the media were adequately informed about the issues being investigated by his Inquiry and in a position to comment accurately about them,’ the report stated.
‘However, the commission concludes that he had not, in fact, acted in good faith and that his conduct, amounting to corrupt conduct within the meaning of the IC Act, undermined the integrity of the board’s processes and the fairness and probity of its proceedings to such an extent as to have been likely to have threatened public confidence in the integrity of that aspect of public administration.
‘It therefore constituted serious corrupt conduct.’
No findings were made against either of the journalists.
Mr Sofronoff’s inquiry had investigated the handling of the sexual assault allegations against Lehrmann.
The former Liberal staffer was tried in the ACT Supreme Court in 2022 over allegations he had raped his then-colleague Brittany Higgins at Parliament House after a night of heavy drinking in 2019.
The criminal trial was aborted after one of the jurors was found to have engaged in misconduct, with Mr Drumgold refusing to pursue a retrial out of concern for Ms Higgins’ fragile mental health.
The criminal trial against Bruce Lehrmann was aborted in 2022 as a result of juror misconduct
Lehrmann was later found to have raped his colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House on the balance of probabilities after he sued Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson
Mr Drumgold called for a public inquiry into how the case was handled, only for Mr Sofronoff’s review make damning findings about the then-DPP’s own conduct.
Mr Sofronoff’s findings have since been found to have been affected by the apprehension of bias in the ACT Supreme Court.
Lehrmann has since been found to have raped Ms Higgins on the balance of probabilities in a civil court after he launched separate defamation actions against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson over an interview with Ms Higgins that appeared on The Project.
He is currently appealing that decision.
The ACT corruption watchdog found Mr Sofronoff provided Ms Albrechtsen with a range of ‘confidential materials’, including witness statements that had not been tendered as evidence at the inquiry and drafts of his final report with comments from the legal team assisting the inquiry.
The commission found the disclosures ‘amounted to a serious breach in the probity of Mr Sofronoff’s exercise of his functions’.
The watchdog also found Mr Sofronoff had sent his final report to Ms Albrechtsen and Ms Byrne under embargo and that, in doing so, he had ‘acted to favour their interests as journalists to the detriment of the countervailing interests of the [inquiry’s] participants and the Chief Minister’.
Mr Sofronoff claimed providing the report to the two journalists as a way to help them understand its content, and report the findings accurately when they were released – but the Commission rejected his explanation as ‘fanciful’.
Former ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold called for a public inquiry into the ACT’s handling of the allegations against Lehrmann only to be hammered by the ensuing probe
‘[It] amounts in reality to no more than giving Ms Albrechtsen and Ms Byrne a “standing start”,’ the commission found.
Mr Sofronoff’s inquiry made ‘several serious findings of misconduct’ against Mr Drumgrold and found the chief prosecutor ‘at times … lost objectivity and did not act with fairness and detachment’ during the Lehrmann trial.
Mr Drumgold resigned in the days after the final report was made public but later sought a judicial review of the findings in the ACT Supreme Court, with Justice Stephen Kaye finding they were affected by an apprehension of bias on Mr Sofronoff’s part.
‘The fair-minded observer might fairly apprehend that, at that point, Mr Sofronoff regarded himself as a “fellow traveller” of Ms Albrechtsen in respect of the views that she had expressed and maintained in her publications about the plaintiff,’ Justice Kaye found.
‘The observer might also apprehend that, as such, Mr Sofronoff regarded it as appropriate to exchange views with Ms Albrechtsen about specific issues which he was required to determine in the inquiry.’
