A police officer who shared details of ex-AFL coach Dani Laidley's arrest in a police group chat has successfully challenged criminal charges.
Murray Gentner was accused of accessing Ms Laidley's arrest record while on a day off in May 2020 and sharing details with colleagues in a WhatsApp group called the "SD1 Gentlemen's Club".
One charge was dropped by prosecutors during a contested hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court, but his lawyers argued there was no case for him to answer on five others.
The charges had alleged he offered commentary on Ms Laidley's charges and appearance, including that she was "now a full blown ice head and tranny".
Magistrate Samantha Poulter on Tuesday found Detective Leading Senior Constable Gentner had not acted contrary to his duties as a police officer, as alleged.
"The disclosure did not impede crime prevention, detection, pursuit of offenders or the like," she said.
"On that basis I find that the prosecution has not established a legal duty not to disclose the information in those circumstances."
In his interview with investigators, Det Gentner said he considered discussions within the WhatsApp group to be private and didn't consider he had done anything wrong.
He also said he would still access a photo of Ms Laidley "100 times out of 100" but regrets having done so now because of the "s***storm" that followed.
"Whoever has leaked this out of the circle of us as police - the words I have are probably not fit to be recorded," he said.
"We've all done the wrong thing, there's huge errors of judgment in this whole thing, that's apparent, but that to me is a huge break of trust out of our circle."
Det Gentner said he accessed details of Ms Laidley's arrest on a police database during a day off because he was "obsessed" with work and frequently kept up to date with known and alleged offenders in his local area.
But prosecutor Neill Hutton said the commentary he offered on Ms Laidley was salacious gossip.
"What the disclosures did was steal from Ms Laidley the right to choose her own time and place to reveal to her family and friends who she truly was," Mr Hutton said.
Ms Poulter ordered that Det Gentner's costs be paid.
