Shane Drumgold

Last updated

Shane Drumgold SC
Shane Drumgold.jpg
Born
Neville Shane Drumgold
NationalityAustralian
Occupation(s)Lawyer, Barrister
Years active1 January 2019 - 6 August 2023
TitleACT Director of Public Prosecutions
Academic background
EducationBEc (CSU)

LLB (Hons) (UC)

MIntLaw (ANU)
Alma mater Charles Sturt University

University of Canberra

Australian National University
Website https://www.dpp.act.gov.au/

Shane Drumgold SC (born 1965) is an Australian Barrister, Adjunct Professor of law, and was the Australian Capital Territory's fifth Director of Public Prosecutions. He was appointed to this role on 1 January 2019 by the Attorney General Gordon Ramsay, succeeding Jon White SC, and resigned from the role on 6 August 2023 in disgrace.

Contents

Early life and education

Shane Drumgold was born Neville Shane Drumgold in Sydney, New South Wales. Drumgold grew up in the public housing estate of Mount Druitt in Sydney’s outer western suburbs. He attended Lethbridge Park Public School, then Shalvey Public High School. In 1978 his family relocated to Taree, New South Wales. Here he attended Taree High School and then Chatham High School. Drumgold’s father Neville Drumgold suffered severe mental illness and committed suicide in 1987. This had a significant impact on Drumgold’s life. He has referenced the suicide of his father and the death of his younger brother, at three years of age, in his book Palm Tree Justice. [1] He has also spoken about both events in media interviews [2] and public speeches. [3] [4]

Drumgold commenced work for Australia Post in 1984; in 1993 he completed an Australia Post sponsored Certificate in Business Management through Charles Sturt University. In 1995 he was admitted to the Bachelor of Business Economics degree at Charles Sturt University and graduated in 1999. [1]

In 1999, Drumgold applied to the Australian National University and the University of Canberra for admission to the Bachelor of Laws degree. He was rejected by both. Drumgold then enrolled in the Diploma of Justice Studies at the University of Canberra. After successful completion of the first semester he was admitted to the Bachelor of Laws degree at the same University in 2000. He graduated with honours in 2001. In his occasional address to a 2021 graduation class, he noted that following his graduation he was employed as both a prosecutor at the ODPP and tutor at the Australian National University:

I cannot explain the surreal experience of standing before a class of University students, teaching them criminal and evidence law, in a degree program they were accepted into the same year I was rejected. This is one of many experiences that has instilled in me the value of keeping one’s eye on the target, regardless of the external narrative. Do not outsource your sense of agency to others, because they do not know your potential like you do and have no interest in re-writing your future. [3]

In 2001 Drumgold was accepted into the Master’s in International Law Degree at the Australian National University. He graduated in 2004.

In 2003 Drumgold was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, studying restorative justice in indigenous communities in the USA, Canada and New Zealand. He published his report in 2004. [5]

Career

Drumgold left school in 1980 at the age of fifteen, starting as a telegram boy for Australia Post in April 1984 in Penrith, New South Wales. He then worked as a postman in Gloucester, New South Wales from September 1986. He was promoted from postman to postal clerk and then to senior postal clerk. In September 1994 he was promoted to postal manager at the Canberra Parliament House post office, then the Canberra Civic post office. In September 1999 he resigned from Australia Post to pursue full time legal studies.

Between December 1999 and January 2001 Drumgold worked as a part time legal officer at the South Eastern Aboriginal Legal Services in Canberra, and in 2001 he published a study on indigenous custody rates. [6] In April 2002, Drumgold commenced working as a Prosecutor at the Australia Capital Territory Office of the Director of Public Prosecution. He worked part time as a tutor at the Australian National University. He continued this role until his appointment as Director of Public Prosecutions in January 2019.

In 2006 to 2007 Drumgold took leave from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to work as a Public Defender in the Solomon Islands. This was part of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands during which time he defended murder trials:

He defended matters arguing for a stay or prosecution based on a post-civil war amnesty Regina v Su’u & Ors [2007] HCSI-CRC 333 of 2006. [8] He was lead counsel in a case seeking a High Court declaration of unlawful conduct by the then Australian dominated Solomon Islands Corrective Services in Ross & Ors v Attorney General [2006] SBHC 573 of 2005. [9] Drumgold later published a book discussing many of these cases. [1]

Drumgold has worked as a prosecutor in the Australian Capital Territory for the last twenty years. During this time he prosecuted many of the Territories most serious murders, attempted murders, and conspiracies to murder:

The matter of R v Rappel later became the subject of the 2020 book, The First Time He Hit Her. [10] In 2019 Drumgold was appointed Senior Counsel [11] and was selected by the Australian Bar Association to deliver the Silks address at the High Court of Australia Gala Silks Dinner in February 2020. [12] An article in the New South Wales Bar Association Bar News later noted “[Drumgold] delivered a speech so inspiring and eloquent, that it drew a standing ovation. Among other things, Shane spoke of our responsibilities as role models and our obligation to build a profession that not only embraces but celebrates diversity in all of its forms.” [13]

On 1 January 2019, Drumgold was appointed the Australian Capital Territory's fifth Director of Public Prosecutions. [14] [15] Drumgold was criticised for his decision not to proceed with charges against a man who helped his wife commit suicide on public interest grounds in the matter of Police v O'Riordan. [16] [17]

Shane Drumgold retired as ACT Director of Public Prosecutions in August 2023 after he admitted his position had become 'untenable' after a 600-page report of inquiry into his failed prosecution in the Brittany Higgins rape allegation case found 'several serious findings of misconduct' against him. Section 14B of the Inquiries Act allowed the ACT Government up to one month to consider the response and consult those mentioned in the report, however it was reported on widely by The Australian newspaper after Walter Sofronoff admitted that he provided a copy to The Australian newspaper. The ACT Government advised it was investigating whether the leak could be found to be illegal. [18] The findings included that Mr Drumgold deliberately misled the court, and misused legal professional privilege to avoid disclosing exculpatory evidence to the defence, a finding Drumgold has strongly disputed. [19]

Drumgold successfully challenged the Sofronoff report in a judicial review before the ACT Supreme Court. [20] The court found that extensive communications with columnist Janet Albrechtsen from The Australian newspaper gave rise to an impression of bias, and further that other findings were unreasonable, whilst others failed to provide procedural fairness. [21] Evidence tendered in the judicial review, revealed that prior to prematurely providing the final report to The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen, Sofronoff had 273 behind the scenes communications with her, including 71 phone calls of which 51 were personally with Ms Albrechtsen totalling some 11 hours and 27 minutes in phone calls. It was further revealed that Albrechtsen flew to Brisbane for a private lunch with Sofronoff. [22] It was reported that this was in stark contrast to Sofronoff's dealings with other media. [23] On 5 April 2024, the ACT Integrity Commission published a media release, announcing that it was looking into the conduct of Sofronoff. [24]

Personal life

In 1983, at eighteen years of age, Drumgold married his first wife, who was 16-year-old and they subsequently had two children. Drumgold divorced in 1996. [25] In 2003 Drumgold married Natasha Zarew and they are parents of two children.

Drumgold was involved in the sport of boxing; winning a National gold medal at the Australian Masters Games in Adelaide, South Australia in the light welterweight division in 2011 and in 2013 in Geelong, Victoria in the welterweight division. [26] [10] He is a former Director of Referees and Judges for Boxing, Australia Capital Territory and has officiated at national boxing competitions. He retired from the sport after the 2015 National Championships in the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia.

Related Research Articles

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the office or official charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. The title is used mainly in jurisdictions that are or have been members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Federal Police</span> Federal police department of the Australian Government

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the national and principal federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government with the unique role of investigating crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth of Australia. The AFP is an independent agency of the Attorney-General's Department and is responsible to the Attorney-General and accountable to the Parliament of Australia. As of October 2019 the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police is Reece Kershaw, formerly the Northern Territory Police Commissioner.

David Harold Eastman is a former public servant from Canberra, Australia. In 1995, he was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. A 2014 judicial inquiry recommended the sentence be quashed and he should be pardoned. On 22 August of the same year, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory quashed the conviction, released Eastman from prison, and ordered a retrial.

Rex Stephen Wild is a former Director of Public Prosecutions for the Northern Territory of Australia.

Crown prosecutors are the public prosecutors in the legal system of Australia. In Western Australia, they are referred to as State prosecutors.

The ages of consent for sexual activity vary from age 15 to 18 across Australia, New Zealand and other parts of Oceania. The specific activity and the gender of its participants is also addressed by the law. The minimum age is the age at or above which an individual can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another person of minimum age. Close in age exceptions may exist and are noted where applicable. In Vanuatu the homosexual age of consent is set higher at 18, while the heterosexual age of consent is 15. Same sex sexual activity is illegal at any age for males in Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Samoa, Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu; it is outlawed for both men and women in the Solomon Islands. In all other places the age of consent is independent of sexual orientation or gender.

Lex Lasry is an Australian lawyer and a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria from 2007 to 2018. He also sat as a reserve judge from 2018 until his retirement as a reserve judge in February 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human trafficking in Australia</span>

Human trafficking in Australia is illegal under Divisions 270 and 271 of the Criminal Code (Cth). In September 2005, Australia ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplemented the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Amendments to the Criminal Code were made in 2005 to implement the Protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Euthanasia in Australia</span> Legal history of euthanasia in Australia

Laws regarding euthanasia or assisted suicide in Australia are matters for state and territory governments. As of November 2023 all states have implemented legislation creating an assisted suicide scheme for eligible individuals. These laws typically refer to assisted suicide as "voluntary assisted dying".

Life imprisonment is the most severe criminal sentence available to the courts in Australia. Most cases attracting the sentence are murder. It is also imposed, albeit rarely, for sexual assault, manufacturing and trafficking commercial quantities of illicit drugs, and offences against the justice system and government security.

The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions or, informally, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) is an independent prosecuting service and government agency within the portfolio of the Attorney-General of Australia, as a part of the Attorney-General's Department. It was established by the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1983 (Cth) and began its operations in 1984.

The New South Wales Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) is an independent prosecuting service and government agency within the portfolio of the Attorney General of New South Wales. Of all prosecuting services in Australia, the ODPP has the largest caseload, staff, and budget.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Reynolds</span> Australian politician

Linda Karen Reynolds is an Australian politician. She is a member of the Liberal Party and has served as a Senator for Western Australia since 2014. She held senior ministerial office as a cabinet minister in the Morrison government from 2019 to 2022.

The Law of Tuvalu comprises the legislation voted into law by the Parliament of Tuvalu and statutory instruments that become law; certain Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom ; the common law; and customary law. The land tenure system is largely based on kaitasi.

Walter Sofronoff is an Australian jurist and lawyer who served as the President of the Queensland Court of Appeal (2017–2022) and as the Solicitor-General of Queensland from 2005 to 2014.

Glenn Sacha Theakston is a Magistrate of the Australian Capital Territory. He was appointed as a Magistrate on 30 May 2016 and Acting Chief Magistrate on 1 August 2019 following Lorraine Walker's appointment to the ACT Supreme Court as an Acting Judge.

In February and March 2021, a number of allegations involving rape and other sexual misconduct against women involving the Australian Parliament and federal politicians were raised, causing controversy especially for the federal Liberal–National Morrison government.

The COVID-19 pandemic in the Australian Capital Territory is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. After one case of the delta variant in mid-August 2021, the Territory went into lockdown. By 26 September, the ACT had its first COVID-19 related death since mid-April 2020, nearly 18 months, followed by 3 more deaths in the first week of October 2021. 28 deaths during the outbreak since 12 August 2021 brought total deaths to 31, the most recent being on 8 February 2022.

Bruce Emery Lehrmann is a former political staffer who was found in a civil court trial at the Australian Federal Court to have raped a colleague at Parliament House, Canberra.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Drumgold, Shane (2011). Palm tree justice : inside the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). Gil Garcon. Amaroo, A.C.T.: S. Drumgold. ISBN   978-0-646-56772-3. OCLC   775600466.
  2. ↑ Pryor, Sally (18 August 2018). "Plato helped Shane move from childhood trauma to a law career". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  3. 1 2 "Occasional Address, University of Canberra April 2021" (PDF).
  4. ↑ "2020 Silks Dinner – Speeches". austbar.asn.au. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  5. ↑ "Churchill Trust". www.churchilltrust.com.au. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  6. ↑ "Drumgold, Shane --- "State and Territory Implementation of the Recommendations of the Royal Commission: Australian Capital Territory" [2001] IndigLawB 30; (2001) 5(8) Indigenous Law Bulletin 7". www5.austlii.edu.au. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  7. ↑ "Regina v Yamalo [2006] SBHC 85; HCSI-CRC 169 of 2005 (23 May 2006)". www.paclii.org. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  8. ↑ "Regina v Su'u [2007] SBHC 144; HCSI-CRC 333 of 2006 (1 March 2007)". www.paclii.org. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  9. ↑ "Ross v Attorney General [2006] SBHC 141; HCSI-CC 573 of 2005 (21 November 2006)". www.paclii.org. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  10. 1 2 Lemon, Heidi (2020). The first time he hit her. Sydney, N.S.W. ISBN   978-0-7336-4376-7. OCLC   1152881340.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ↑ "Media Release 2019 Silk announcement" (PDF).
  12. ↑ "2020 Silks Dinner – Speeches". austbar.asn.au. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  13. ↑ "Australian Bar Association High Court Silk Bows – 3 Feb 2020 | BarNews". barnews.nswbar.asn.au. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  14. ↑ Corporate=, ACT Director of Public Prosecutions; PositionTitle=Web Manager; SectionName= (1 August 2019). "The Director of Public Prosecutions". www.dpp.act.gov.au. Retrieved 1 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ Back, Alexandra (11 December 2018). "Shane Drumgold announced as new ACT DPP". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  16. ↑ Williams, Elliot (2 July 2019). "Dropped assisted suicide case not a green light for mercy killings". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  17. ↑ "Husband who helped terminally ill wife 'have a quick and painless' death cleared". www.abc.net.au. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  18. ↑ https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/sofronoff-could-face-integrity-commission-probe-and-charges-20230807-p5dugc
  19. ↑ Karp, Paul (7 August 2023). "Sofronoff report: ACT inquiry makes serious misconduct findings against former DPP Shane Drumgold". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 21 August 2023.
  20. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/29/shane-drumgold-is-taking-legal-action-over-the-sofronoff-inquiry-what-could-happen-next
  21. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/04/bruce-lehrmann-prosecution-walter-sofronoff-shane-drumgold-impression-bias-court-ntwnfb
  22. ↑ "Could Janet Albrechtsen have swayed Walter Sofronoff?". 17 February 2024.
  23. ↑ https://the-riotact.com/letter-from-the-editor-the-judge-the-journalist-and-the-teenage-crush-paid-for-by-the-act/745230
  24. ↑ https://www.integrity.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2428754/Media-Alert-5-April-2024.pdf
  25. ↑ "Late Risers: School Dropouts Who Made It Anyway" . Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  26. ↑ "Boxing".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.