CANBERRA, Australia (AP) –
Australia’s attorney general has denied having sex with a 16-year-old man who accused him of raping her 33 years ago and said on Wednesday he would not step down as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. .
Christian Porter said instead that he will take time off to take care of his mental health after the accusations became public recently.
“I will take a few weeks off just for my own health,” Porter told reporters. “I think I’ll be able to come back from this and do my job.”
The prosecutor took her own life 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 press reported that the alleged rapist is one of the 16 men in Morrison’s 22-member cabinet, but Porter has been widely identified online.
The 50-year-old former criminal prosecutor said he decided to speak after police said on Tuesday that there was not enough admissible evidence to continue a criminal investigation.
Prominent lawyers and the woman’s friends have called for an independent investigation to test the evidence against Porter.
Morrison noted Porter’s denials and said the charges should be left to police to handle.
Porter said any investigation into the accusation would require him to “disapprove of something that did not happen 33 years ago.”
Buy Michael Bradley, the alleged victim’s former lawyer, said it would be a “media trial” in the absence of an official investigation.
“We shouldn’t all want this to happen, but it will happen if his accusation and response are not tested in a proper formal process,” Bradley said.
Porter said the reported rape charge did not justify his resignation.
“If I retire from my position as Attorney General because of an accusation about something that just didn’t happen, then anyone in Australia can lose their career, their job, their life’s work based on just one accusation in print. Said Porter.
“If this happens, anyone in public life can be removed by simply printing an indictment,” he added.
Porter said she was 17 when she competed with the then-16-year-old accuser on a four-member school debate team in January 1988. He said he had not heard from her since.
“I did not sleep with the (alleged) victim. We didn’t have anything like that to happen between us, “Porter said.
“I remember the person as an intelligent, bright, happy person,” he added.
The woman was not named. Police are preparing evidence to help a coroner determine the cause of her death.
The case added to the intensified scrutiny of attitudes towards sexual harassment and violence in Parliament, after a staff member filed an unrelated accusation two weeks ago that she had been raped by a senior colleague in a minister’s office.
This week, the government notified Parliament staff via e-mail about a new confidential hotline for reporting serious incidents at work.