By Maeve Bannister in Canberra

THE ACT’s chief prosecutor will be cross-examined after he accused senior police officers investigating Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations of having a “skills deficit”.

Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold will be questioned by a lawyers representing the Australian Federal Police and ACT Policing on his fifth day giving evidence to an independent inquiry.

The inquiry, led by former Queensland solicitor-general Walter Sofronoff, was established by the ACT government to examine how territory police, prosecutors and a victim support service handled Ms Higgins’ allegations.

Mr Drumgold has accused police officers of having a “passion” for the prosecution of Ms Higgins’ former colleague Bruce Lehrmann to fail.

He told the inquiry on Thursday he believed some of the senior officers lost their objectivity during the case.

“There was an individual who was fairly central to the investigation… who said he was physically ill when charges were laid,” Mr Drumgold said.

“If you’re central to an investigation and your mindset is such that you’re going to be physically ill if (it) results in charges, it can’t do anything but interfere with your objectivity.”

The prosecutor believed officers had engaged in “stereotype analysis” about how rape complainants behave and this influenced their investigation.

“These were key people in an investigation… they engaged with (Ms Higgins). Every time (she) went in to give them some evidence, these are the views that she was met with,” he said.

Mr Drumgold had previously told the inquiry he was concerned by “strange events” during the investigation and trial that had led him to believe there was a political interest in the prosecution’s failure.

This included a brief of evidence containing Ms Higgins’ counselling notes, being provided to the defence team, which Mr Drumgold thought had been a deliberate act by police.

But on Thursday he admitted that on reflection, and having read submissions to the inquiry, he believed the police who investigated the matter had a skills deficit.

Asked by inquiry chair Walter Sofronoff whether his suspicions about political interference preventing the case going ahead had been incorrect, Mr Drumgold said: “I do accept that.”

“My current view, having read all of the police statements, is it was most likely a skills deficit on the part of the investigators as a group, including senior police,” he said.

Officers from ACT Policing and the AFP are expected to give evidence to the inquiry, as well as Mr Lehrmann’s defence lawyer Steven Whybrow and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

Dear Director, about that letter to the police chief…