A former South Australian Labor MP and her husband have had blackmail charges against them dropped.
Annabel and Greg Digance had previously both pleaded not guilty to the allegations which related to their conduct towards Premier Peter Malinauskas when he was opposition leader.
In a hearing on Friday, the charges against the pair were withdrawn by the director of public prosecutions in return for them agreeing to certain undisclosed orders.
They were believed to include provisions that they not have any further contact with the premier.
Speaking after the hearing, Mr Malinauskas said the result was one he had always wanted.
“I’m particularly relieved that this matter has now been resolved,” he said.
‘An outcome that I’ve wanted’
“It’s an outcome that I’ve wanted from the very beginning, which was always to have Mr and Mrs Digance simply leave me alone.”
Ms Digance and her husband were arrested in April 2021 at their Strathalbyn home, south of Adelaide.
At the time, police said it would be alleged they were involved in a common enterprise to obtain a personal gain by threatening to make allegations of misconduct against the then-opposition leader.
It was understood that benefit involved Ms Digance being placed in a winnable spot on the Legislative Council ticket or being preselected for a safe Labor seat prior to the 2022 election.
In an earlier application to have the case thrown out, the former MP argued that if any threats were made they fell within the so-called “political exception” to blackmail laws which protected “negotiations” to secure a political advantage.
She also noted that almost a year passed between when the alleged offences occurred and when she and her husband were arrested, arguing the timing was designed to stymie a parliamentary inquiry into bullying and intimidation in the Labor Party.
Legal arguments rejected
Those arguments were rejected and the pair were committed to face a trial which had been scheduled to start next month.
Ms Digance served in the SA parliament as the lower house member for Elder from 2014 to 2018, but lost her seat to the Liberals in the 2018 state election.
She also stood as an independent upper house candidate at the 2022 poll but failed to win a seat.
-AAP
