Speaking for the first time since the High Court ruled on Wednesday that the corruption watchdog had no power to investigate her, Ms Cunneen said she had been the subject of a witch-hunt, but most regretted the impact the whole saga had had on her family, including her eldest son, Stephen Wyllie, and his girlfriend, Sophia Tilley.

At the centre of the commission's inquiry was the allegation that Ms Cunneen had advised Ms Tilley to feign chest pains to avoid a police breath test after she was involved in a serious car crash in Willoughby in May last year.

Ms Cunneen told radio station 2GB that the most "fundamental fact" of the case was that, following the crash, Ms Tilley was promptly blood tested at Royal North Shore Hospital and returned results of "zero, zero, zero".

Ms Cunneen recalled how she had arrived at the scene of the crash, frightened and in tears.

"I spoke to my son, and then I asked for permission to walk up the stairs into the ambulance to ask Sophia if I could contact her parents, which she didn't want me to do, to worry them on that day. That was the extent of the conversation, and shortly she was taken off to the hospital," Ms Cunneen said.

She said it was protocol that, in the case of serious accidents such as the one Ms Tilley was involved in, the patient was taken straight to hospital and subjected to a blood test to determine if any alcohol or drugs were in their system.

Police would not enter an ambulance and breath-test an injured patient at the scene of such a crash, she said, because they knew the patient would be automatically tested at hospital.

"The police didn't speak to her at all [at the scene of the crash] so she didn't have a chance to tell the truth or any lies," she said.

Ms Cunneen said that, following the crash, her son and Ms Tilley's home was raided in the early hours of the morning, with no explanation given for the raid.

The couple were told they could go to jail if they did not hand over their phones.

Ms Cunneen's phone and Mr Wyllie's father's phone were also seized, she said.

"It seems to me ridiculous, having worked in the criminal justice system for all the years I have, that murderers and terrorists would not have been treated like this," Ms Cunneen said.

"They themselves [Stephen Wyllie and Ms Tilley] are not public officials, they're in their mid 20s, they have to make their way through their careers for the rest of their lives with these allegations all over the internet that they were somehow involved in an attempt to pervert the course of justice."

She labelled as "nonsense" the claims, reported in The Sydney Morning Herald this week, that intercepted phone calls by a multi-agency task force investigating organised crime were the basis of the ICAC investigation.

"For any newspaper in Sydney to be continuing to try to give me another go on the ducking stool that they used to use for witches by suggesting it's anything to do with phone taps is a nonsense," she said.

"I never spoke on the phone about this matter on that night [of the crash] at all, because Stephen rang his father about the accident and his father told me.

"I think that just further goes to show that neither Stephen or Sophia were looking for any legal advice, since dad's not a lawyer."

Asked if she had been damaged by the experience, Ms Cunneen said she had to look for a silver lining.

"It's something that should never have happened, particularly to my family. I hope it makes them stronger. It certainly made our family bonds stronger because every single member in the family has had to suffer," she said.

However, as a parent, she did feel guilty "that your children have to suffer and have all their rights taken away".

"It does, as a parent, make you feel very guilty," she said.