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The NSW premier, Chris Minns , has rejected the recommendation of a parliamentary committee to establish a formal inquiry to see if there are grounds for removing the state’s top prosecutor from office.

Last week , an upper house inquiry voted 4-3 to find that the NSW director of public prosecutions (DPP), Sally Dowling , had authorised pitching a story to radio station 2GB about a sentencing hearing involving a young Indigenous person, and “falsely denied having done so” to the committee. Dowling has admitted her office pitched the story but denied under oath that she had authorised it – she and another DPP witness rejected the characterisation of the incident as a “leak”.

Asked about the incident last year, Minns said it would be “completely unacceptable” for the DPP to leak information. Asked about his previous comments at a press conference today, he said:

double quotation mark I think that [the committee] have come in very hard denouncing an independent judicial officer who serves an important role on evidence that at best is very different. The two people who gave sworn evidence to the committee said that the DPP didn’t leak the information. So I do stand by that view, but I’m not sure, I don’t believe the evidence supports the recommendations.

Since the findings, many have written in support of Dowling and against the recommendations, including 120 crown prosecutors, the Police Association of NSW, and the Public Service Association, the union for prosecutors. Defence Lawyers NSW, an incorporated association for criminal barristers and solicitors with more than 700 members, has written to the attorney general, Michael Daley, to say the report “raises questions that require further examination”.

Daley, who has hit out against the report, has instructed crown solicitors to brief senior counsel to conduct an independent review into the report, which will be led by Noel Hutley SC , a former Bar Association president.