The ACT's top prosecutor wondered whether the unauthorised disclosure of Brittany Higgins' confidential counselling notes amounted to "unsophisticated corruption" by police or "atomic-level stupidity", an inquiry has been told.
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But Shane Drumgold SC has also come under fire for reading the notes, conceding he should not have done so and he may have breached the law.
The issue of police sending Bruce Lehrmann's lawyers protected documents was discussed on Tuesday at an independent inquiry into how authorities handled the high-profile case.
Mr Lehrmann, who denies raping Ms Higgins at Parliament House when the pair were Liberal Party staffers in 2019, stood trial in the ACT Supreme Court last year.
Following a mistrial, the rape charge levelled at the 27-year-old was discontinued.
It subsequently emerged that police and prosecutors had been at loggerheads about various issues throughout the case.
One issue arose when police took the unusual step of sending Mr Lehrmann's lawyers a brief of evidence before he had entered a plea.
In a written statement to the inquiry, Mr Drumgold outlined how police would ordinarily complete a brief and send his office a draft following a not guilty plea.
Prosecutors would then check it before it was disclosed to defence lawyers, in part to ensure nothing inappropriate had been included.
In this case, Mr Drumgold described being "shocked" to learn police had sent Mr Lehrmann's legal team a brief that included Ms Higgins' confidential counselling notes.
Frustrated by this and other perceived impropriety by police, he speculated in text messages with colleague Skye Jerome about what might be motivating investigators.
His statement shows he floated the suggestions of corruption and stupidity in these messages.
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While Mr Drumgold objected to the way police had handled the sensitive material, saying he feared Ms Higgins would be "distraught" as a result, he also faced criticism over the issue while he was giving evidence on Tuesday.
Mr Drumgold described how, during his efforts to work out what "damage" had been done and how to tell Ms Higgins, he looked through the counselling notes.
Inquiry chairman Walter Sofronoff KC pointed out Mr Drumgold was not supposed to have them either, asking why this had not stopped him when he was so worried about defence lawyers seeing the material.
"Why the double standard?" the inquiry chairman asked, also questioning whether Mr Drumgold accepted he might have acted contrary to the Victims of Crime Act by reading protected material.
In response, Mr Drumgold accepted he should not have read the counselling notes and said doing so had "possibly" been a statutory breach.
But he said he "did not even consider" legislative requirements at the time because he was preoccupied with "preserving a complainant" and trying to limit the material's dissemination.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Erin Longbottom KC, asked Mr Drumgold whether he had considered recusing himself from the case because he had read the counselling notes.
She pointed out this meant he had seen material Mr Lehrmann's lawyers were not allowed to access.
Mr Drumgold replied: "Not really."
"I had not seen anything in the notes that amounted to a conflict," Mr Drumgold said.
The inquiry continues on Wednesday, with Mr Drumgold expected to keep giving oral evidence.
