ACT watchdog to investigate if Walter Sofronoff acted corruptly by leaking Lehrmann trial report
The ACT’s integrity watchdog will investigate whether Walter Sofronoff acted corruptly by leaking his final report on the Bruce Lehrmann trial to select journalists ahead of its official release.
On Monday, a statement confirmed the ACT integrity commissioner, Michael Adams, would launch an investigation “into the impugned conduct as [the commissioner] suspects, on reasonable grounds, that Mr Sofronoff’s conduct may constitute corrupt conduct”.
In August 2023 the ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, accused Sofronoff of breaching “good faith” obligations after the former Queensland judge leaked his own report to an ABC journalist and The Australian newspaper columnist, Janet Albrechtsen. The report was given under an agreement the outlets would not publish until Barr officially released it.
The Australian published a story about Sofronoff’s findings ahead of its public release but denied breaching any embargo. It said it would “not reveal” its sources.
The integrity commission specified its investigation would look at whether Sofronoff’s decision to prematurely hand the final report to two journalists was a breach of the requirements of the Inquiries Act 1991 and if it constituted corrupt conduct under the Integrity Commission Act 2018.
At the time, Barr said Sofronoff had explained he believed it was “possible to identify journalists who are ethical” and that he judged neither of the pair would “take the serious step of betraying his trust by behaving unprofessionally”.
Barr said calling another inquiry into the leak “runs the risk of being quite ridiculous”.
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Guardian Australia contacted Sofronoff for a response. An ACT government spokesperson said it did not comment on the commission’s ongoing investigations.
Sofronoff had been handpicked to review the ACT police investigation and subsequent trial into Lehrmann and determine whether it was subject to political influence after the then ACT director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, raised concerns.
Lehrmann was accused of raping Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019. In a 2022 criminal trial he pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity occurred. He maintains his innocence.
Sofronoff ’s findings, publicly released in July 2023, ruled out political influence or interference, praised police conduct, and instead called Drumgold’s conduct into question. The report found “several serious findings of misconduct” against Drumgold, concluding he “at times … lost objectivity and did not act with fairness and detachment”.
Drumgold, who resigned shortly after the report’s release, then launched legal action against Sofronoff’s board of inquiry, alleging the inquiry failed to give him a fair hearing, denied him natural justice, breached the law and “gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias”.
The supreme court case revealed 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 spent seven and a half hours on the phone with journalists from The Australian over the seven-month period, most of them with Albrechtsen.
Dan O’Gorman, Drumgold’s lawyer, argued in February’s hearings that Albrechtsen was an “advocate” for Lehrmann who may have “infected” Sofronoff with bias against his client, leading
the inquiry head to “deal with matters other than on their legal and factual merits”.
“What Mr Drumgold alleges is that Mr Sofronoff ’s association with Ms Albrechtsen in particular might be thought by the fair-minded observer to have possibly diverted Mr Sofronoff from deciding the issues in his terms of reference on their merit,” O’Gorman said.
Kate Eastman, a lawyer representing the ACT government, a party to the proceedings, said it was not clear the pair’s extensive communications had any effect on Sofronoff’s conduct.
Brendan Lim, who represented Sofronoff and the board of inquiry, said Sofronoff discussed practical matters about the inquiry with Albrechtsen, including when documents would become available.
Justice Stephen Kaye ruled in March the inquiry head’s extensive interactions with Albrechtsen gave the impression he “might have been influenced by the views held and publicly expressed” by her.
Drumgold’s legal team attempted to overturn eight of Sofronoff’s “serious findings of misconduct”, but was ultimately only successful in striking off one.
Kaye found Sofronoff’s finding that Drumgold had acted with “grossly unethical conduct” during his crossexamination of the retiring Liberal senator Linda Reynolds was found “legally unreasonable”.