922 "I am that girl"
This is sooo wrong. We’re reading in the press about rape cases in India and how the law may protect rapists, but it turns out the situation is similarly bad in AUS.
An eighteen year old woman was raped five years ago. The perpetrator admitted to the intercourse but claimed it was consensual, because - wait for it - the woman apparently did not do enough to discourage him (which she denies vehemently). SMH.
Early on she protested, saying she was a virgin ... so he raped her anally. He admitted in his trial that the process was “gross” and no virgin should have such an encounter ... in a back-street lane, no less. They had met only minutes earlier. The man - Luke Lazarus - then coaxed her into adding her name to the 'trophy-list' in his smart phone of women he had had intercourse with.
He was sentenced to five years in
jail but was released after eleven months, pending a re-trial ... at which he
was exonerated. The judge accepted his defense that the woman did not do enough
to convince him she did not consent to the intercourse. The victim strongly
objected, saying she told him repeatedly she did not want to go through with
what was happening; but the (female) judge believed him, not her. There will be
no
retrial.
The whole saga is documented in this 4 Corners report:
The newspaper reports of the case were followed up in the SMH by a barrister writing: "'Horrendous consequences' if sexual
consent law reform goes wrong".
This is my letter to the newspaper:
