CANBERRA, Australia (AP) –
The Australian Attorney General denied having had sexual contact with a 16-year-old who charged him with rape 33 years ago and said on Wednesday that he would not step down as the country’s top prosecutor.
Christian Porter instead said he would take a leave of absence to care for his mental health after the allegations went public recently.
“I’m going to take a few weeks off just for my own sanity,” Porter told reporters. “I think I can get back from that and do my job.”
The prosecution took her own life last year, and her allegations against Porter went public last week when they were anonymously sent to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other lawmakers.
The media had reported that the alleged rapist was one of 16 men in Morrison’s 22-member cabinet, but Porter was widely identified online.
The 50-year-old former prosecutor said he decided to speak out after police said on Tuesday that there was not enough admissible evidence to proceed with a criminal investigation.
Prominent lawyers and the woman’s friends have called for an independent investigation to test the evidence against Porter.
Morrison took note of Porter’s denials and said the charges should be left to the police.
Porter said any investigation into the accusation would require him to “denounce something that didn’t happen 33 years ago.”
Koop Michael Bradley, the alleged victim’s former attorney, said there would be a “trial by the media” without a formal investigation.
“We shouldn’t all want this to happen, but it will if the allegation and its response are not tested in a proper formal trial,” Bradley said.
Porter said the reported rape allegation did not justify quitting his job.
“If I step down as Attorney General on an allegation about something that simply didn’t happen, any person in Australia could lose their career, their job, their life’s work based on nothing more than an accusation in print,” Porter said. .
“If that happens, anyone in public life can be removed simply by printing an allegation,” he added.
Porter said he was 17 when he joined the then 16-year-old prosecutor on a four-member school debate team in January 1988. He said he hadn’t heard from her since.
“I have not slept with the (alleged) victim. We haven’t let anything of that sort happen between us, ”said Porter.
“I remember the person as an intelligent, smart, happy person,” he added.
The woman is not mentioned. Police are preparing evidence to help a coroner determine the cause of death.
The case has contributed to a closer scrutiny of attitudes to sexual harassment and violence in Parliament, after a staffer made an unrelated allegation two weeks ago that she had been raped by a senior colleague in a minister’s office.
The government emailed Parliament House staff this week about a new confidential complaint line for reporting serious workplace incidents.