ACT government to put Bruce Lehrmann inquiry report through 'cabinet process'

Board of inquiry chairman Walter Sofronoff KC and his team of counsel assisting are expected to travel from Queensland to Canberra on Sunday with copies of the keenly anticipated findings.

While they plan to present the report to Chief Minister Andrew Barr the next day, the public will have to wait to learn what it means for the key players in the most publicised case in recent Australian history.

"The ACT government will consider the report through a proper cabinet process," a spokeswoman for Mr Barr told The Canberra Times on Friday.

"This will take three to four weeks.

"The [ACT] Legislative Assembly will be updated during the scheduled sittings in late August."

Mr Barr's spokeswoman said, subject to the contents of the report and any legal implications, the Chief Minister intended to table all or part of it during the August parliamentary sittings.

Those are scheduled to occur between August 29 and 31.

"Again, subject to the recommendations of the report, the government may provide an interim response to some, or all, of the recommendations when the report is tabled in the Legislative Assembly," the spokeswoman said.

"Subject to the recommendations, a final government response may take several months."

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During inquiry hearings, conducted in May and early June, Mr Sofronoff described the prosecution of Mr Lehrmann as the most scrutinised case in this country since that of Lindy Chamberlain in the 1980s.

The eyes of the nation were on the ACT Supreme Court as Mr Lehrmann defended an allegation that he raped former colleague Brittany Higgins at Parliament House when the pair were Liberal Party staffers.

After Mr Lehrmann's trial was aborted because of juror misconduct, the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold SC, discontinued the charge of sexual intercourse without consent.

Mr Drumgold took the unusual step of announcing this decision at a press conference, one of several actions that later generated controversy.

He also came under fire for misleading Chief Justice Lucy McCallum about a document, though he insisted he did not do this intentionally, and for failing to give Lisa Wilkinson a stronger warning before the television personality delivered an infamous Logie awards speech that delayed Mr Lehrmann's trial.

After being grilled about these issues, and others, for a week, Mr Drumgold took extended leave and remains absent from his office.

He was not the only public official to come out of the inquiry worse for wear, with ACT Policing bruised by revelations officers were "confused" about the legal threshold to charge a suspect.

The inquiry's public hearings also revealed police used the sexual assault and child abuse team as "a training ground for budding detectives", barely any of whom have been specially trained in the sensitive investigative area.

The shortcomings of senior police were also exposed, with Commander Michael Chew admitting, in one damaging concession, that he had been in an unnecessary rush to "move on" from Mr Lehrmann's case.

His needless haste resulted in him dismissing the concerns of a subordinate and directing that a brief of evidence be served on Mr Lehrmann's lawyers without it going through the usual checks first.

The result was that Ms Higgins' confidential counselling notes were sent to the barrister who represented Mr Lehrmann at the time he was charged.

ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates also faced significant backlash over her conspicuous presence beside Ms Higgins during Mr Lehrmann's trial.

While her critics ultimately retracted the majority of their comments about her, Ms Yates still faced a grilling in relation to whether she had undermined the presumption of innocence in one respect.

This related to her decision to stand beside Ms Higgins as the latter ripped into the justice system at a time when Mr Lehrmann was still expected to face a retrial in relation to the alleged rape.

Ms Yates ultimately conceded that, in hindsight, she ought to have asked about the content of Ms Higgins' speech before agreeing to stand beside her as it was read.

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