ICAC’s leak of Margaret Cunneen’s private text messages to her boss triggered a feud between the top prosecutors in NSW. Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor Ms Cunneen warned her boss, NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb, that he could take no action over the text messages in which she criticised him because ICAC had seized her phone illegally.

NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks said would be an abuse of power if proven, saying the essence of the complaint was that ICAC had disclosed material that was outside the scope of its investigation. “If this claim is true it’s an extraordinary abuse of power by ICAC and it just shows you that authorities when given extraordinary powers can abuse them,” he said. “If this claim is true it would seem that ICAC has gone beyond the material that it legitimately had reason to access and has misused that material.”

Article:ICAC’s Margaret Cunneen SMS leak sparked prosecutor feud

Source: The Australian Business Review