Findlay McRae, who headed the legal department for almost 15 years and was a major part in guiding Victoria Police’s responses to the crisis for over a decade, was referred to the legal regulator for his “persistent failures” to his duties within the legal profession. 

“Having regard to the evidence and responsive submissions, Mr McRae’s handling on Victoria Police’s disclosures to the DPP, along with Ms Gobbo’s civil litigation, fell short of the commission’s expectations of the most senior lawyer in Victoria Police,” the final report, written by the inquiry’s commissioner Margaret McMurdo AC, set out. 

“The commission considers that he should have ensured that adequate disclosure was made to the DPP much earlier and much more comprehensively than it was.”

The report said it was “regrettable” that from a June 2012 meeting between Mr McRae and the DPP, he failed to “clearly and unequivocally” inform them about what the police had been doing with Ms Gobbo in the decade prior, despite several investigations that made the extent of damage clear to him time and again. 

During evidence, Mr McRae told the commission that he worked to and for the Victoria Police Chief Commissioner and that he was concerned for her safety. The commission found that the safety risks would not have escalated had he informed the DPP. 

VIEW ALL

“Those matters did not absolve [Mr McRae] of his legal professional obligations to the administration of justice and the court. It required him to inform the DPP of the extent of Ms Gobbo’s relationship with Victoria Police to enable the DPP to meet the ongoing disclosure obligations in past, current and pending cases,” Ms McMurdo wrote. 

“He seems to have persistently failed in his duty to do so.”