CANBERRA, Australia (AP) –
Australia’s attorney general denied having sexual contact with a 16-year-old who accused him of raping her 33 years ago and said on Wednesday he would not step down as the country’s top law enforcement officer.
Instead, Christian Porter said he would take leave to take care of his mental health after the allegations were made public recently.
“I’m going to take a few weeks off just for my own sanity,” Porter told reporters. “I think I’ll be able to get back from this and do my job.”
The accuser committed suicide last year and her allegations against Porter became public last week, when they were sent anonymously to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other lawmakers.
The media 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 criminal prosecutor said he had decided to speak out after the police said on Tuesday that there was insufficient admissible evidence to proceed with a criminal investigation.
Prominent lawyers and friends of the woman have called for an independent inquiry to test the evidence against Porter.
Morrison noted Porter’s denials and said the charges should be left to the police to handle.
Porter said that any investigation into the allegation would require him to “disapprove of something that did not happen 33 years ago”.
Buy Michael Bradley, the former victim’s lawyer, said there would be a “media trial” in the absence of a formal inquiry.
“We shouldn’t all want this to happen, but it will happen if the claim and its response are not tested in a proper formal process,” said Bradley.
Porter said the rape allegation did not justify dismissing him.
“If I step out of my position as attorney general because of an allegation about something that just didn’t happen, anyone in Australia can lose his career, his job, his life’s work based on nothing more than an accusation that appears in print, ”said Porter.
“If that happens, anyone in public life can be removed simply by printing a complaint,” he added.
Porter said he was 17 when he competed alongside the then 16-year-old accuser on a debate team at a four-member school in January 1988. He said he had not heard from her since.
“I didn’t sleep with the (alleged) victim. We didn’t have anything like that happening between us, ”said Porter.
“I remember the person as an intelligent, brilliant and happy person,” he added.
The woman was not named. The police are preparing evidence to help a coroner determine the cause of his death.
The case increased scrutiny of attitudes toward sexual harassment and violence in Parliament after an employee made an unrelated claim two weeks ago that she had been raped by a senior colleague in a minister’s office.
The government e-mailed House of Parliament officials this week about a new hotline of confidential complaints for reporting serious incidents in the workplace.