"A woman is at just as great a risk of sexual assault from a man who stands up as she enters his company as she is from any other man. To claim otherwise is to mislead women about what makes them vulnerable to sexual assault, and about where the threats to their autonomy come from."

Of course all women are at risk of sexual assault from evil white males.

In fact, evil white males are just so evil.

Best for women not to go anywhere near evil white male.

Why mention white males unless you're obsessed with race?

That's a very categorical assertion, Ms Pringle.

"A woman is at just as great a risk of sexual assault from a man who stands up as she enters his company as she is from any other man."

Are you sure of that?

In my - admittedly somewhat old-fashioned - view of the world, I am equally certain that you are wrong. In my experience, men who pay attention to the courtesies towards females are far, far less likely to be predatory towards women, than blokes who treat their sheilas like chattels.

I completely concur, by the way, that such a view should not be entered in evidence, per se. The guilt or innocence of the party should rely entirely on the facts of the case.

Nevertheless, there have always been opportunities for the defence to present "character witnesses". These are equally valid where, say, an accountant has been caught embezzling ("he's a pillar of the community m'lud, and gives often to charity") as it is for a footballer up for rape.

It is against this standard that the contribution "Any allegation that [the accused] forced himself on any woman or girl is completely inconsistent with the character of the young man I know" should be measured.

That was not, after all, an assertion that "he didn't do it". Simply a statement that it was "completely inconsistent with the character of the young man I know". Pretty much the same words, I would imagine, that a close friend could have used to describe our putative embezzler.

It would be an appalling perversion of justice, if the facts were overruled by the character reference. But that really is not much of an excuse for the generic bloke-bash provided here.

"To claim otherwise is to mislead women about what makes them vulnerable to sexual assault, and about where the threats to their autonomy come from."

I'm afraid that the "fear every man equally" approach is equally misleading, Ms Pringle.

And quite damaging.

"The accused" has also been found not guilty. So just maybe Mr Bellanto and Ms Cunneen were right in this case? Accusations are made against people for all sorts of reasons, not all of them honorable, and resulting charges are best judged by the courts, not by academics with an agenda to push. I'm a social worker with experience in counseling victims of assault, so I well understand the effects of assault on those who are subjected to it. But I've also counseled people who have been maliciously accused and know that the adverse effects can be just as great. Leave judgements to judges and juries. The application of generalisations in the context of specific cases is a very harmful (in fact abusive) practice.

The author is really saying (I think) that a man who is known to behave in a gentlemanly manner might one day make a mistake and commit a crime (in theory).

This fact is true, just as a woman who normally acts in a well mannered and ladylike way (however that might be defined) may still one day be guilty of an offence or of making a false accusation.

However, that said, the character of both the accused and the complainant are usually raised in these sorts of cases as 'character' is often used as a defence.

The bottom line in these sorts of cases is ascertaining guilt. Sometimes people are accused of crimes they have not done. That is also a fact.

None of us know the truth of this case only those intimately involved - the defendant and the complainant - but we should not dismiss the character of a person so easily. How does one ascertain guilt without any other witnesses - maybe character is sometimes all we have to go on. Unless we use polygraph but I don't know how reliable those machines might be - if they are reliable why not just hook both up to one and get on with it.

Would a character reference of the plaintiff be acceptable? In this line of argument, I think not. References would paint Stewart as a true gentleman and his victim as a bit of a bottom-feeder, whose father (conveniently close by at the time) has quite a criminal history, including prison time for fraud. If that doesn't skew a jury, I don't know what will. Of course, this sort of information could be quite relevant - one man has form as a liar and a crim, the other doesn't. Hmmm ...