“Unfortunately there are too many people in Canberra who are afraid. Plenty of people knew what I knew,but no one else stood up.”

He said outside court in March he would defend the case on legal grounds,namely that he had a duty to report the information at the heart of the leaks.

“I’m seeking to have the case look purely at whether the government broke the law and whether it was my duty as a lawyer to report that fact,” he said. “I’m taking away,off the table,any dispute about whether the documents were given.”

In 2002 Mr McBridewon a tough preselection battle to run as the Liberal Party's candidate in the NSW seat of Coogee,then a Labor stronghold held by veteran MP Ernie Page. It followed a brief flirtation with the ALP in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Joining Mr McBride on the campaign trail washis father William McBride,the Sydney doctor who was celebrated for alerting the world to the dangers of thalidomide.

Dr McBride,who died last year,was struck off the medical register in the early 1990s after concerns were raised about his research into another drug he suspected caused birth defects. He won the right to practice again in 1998.

Mr McBride lost the 2003 state election to the ALP's Mr Page and Coogee would not be reclaimed by the Liberals until 2011. The seat returned to ALP hands at the March 23 election this year.

In a varied career,the Oxford and University of Sydney alumnus also worked at a London-based security company and,years before his pursuit by the AFP,appeared in the British adventure game-showWanted in the 1990s. His Supreme Court case is listed for a preliminary hearing on June 13.

Mr McBride toldThe Canberra Times there was no connection between him andthe AFP's raid on Tuesday of the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.