Outstanding.

The nail has been hit on the head.

You have an insight due to your position like few do, and for a joe bloggs who feels this way, no one seems to listen.

I hope those with the ability to do so take on board what you are saying.

It needs to change, otherwise legal action, regardless of the outcome will become the power play of the 21st century.

Thankfully, in South Australia, idiot judges are being questioned on this matter. A person who shot out the eye of an innocent man was released on a good behaviour bond. The government appealed, and the criminal was locked up. A lawyer who killed a cyclist, then drove off ringing several people in his efforts to get away, is now back in court. A disqualified, drunk 16 year old who killed a motorcyclist with a car and who was given a 2 year suspended sentence because of his 'psychological' problems has had his case sent back to the DPP by the government.

The problem of inadequate sentencing still remains. The SA government has made the feel-good gesture of raising the maximum penalty for hit-run drivers to life imprisonment, when they should be raising the minimum jail term. Unworldly judges cannot be trusted with the amazing discretion they have.

Michael

Thank you for your article. Yes, I'm sure there are lots of "liars" out there.

Balance? As a victim of stranger bashing and rape by two men, I have difficulty with the notion of balance. One got 200 hours - the other 4 and a 1/2 years (after the DPP appealed the original three years). The "Justice" admitted that he had used a law which was 20 years out of date. My life was ruined. They admitted that they went out that night to rape a woman! They are now free - and I am still in my emotional prison.

Well done Michael.

And well said Realist above.

But how many people feel this way? I fear that we are but the few. As I wrote on a previous thread, justice seems to have given way to revenge. People seem to just want someone locked up. DPPs seem to want to get conviction stats up, police seem to want to get crimes solved whatever the cost. There seems to be little justice at all these days.

And there's far too much name suppression. The accused has the right to know and face the accuser. The public has a right to know what's going on. Penalties for false accusations and perjury must be applied more liberally. Those falsely accused and acquitted should have recourse to sue for slander, even against the DPP itself.

There certainly does need to be a balancing up. I just hope this message reaches more people.

And maybe where an accused person perjures themselves in the witness box, and is acquitted, they should be able to be charged with perjury?

At the moment, due to a High Court decision that basically says that an accused person cannot be found guilty of perjury if they are acquitted, they can lie their heads off in the witness box without fear of penalty. And if they are found guilty, their lying is not held aganst them anyway.

In effect the High Court has given the accused the right to give unsworn evidence, without the jury being warned that the accused will not face perjury charges.

At the moment there are many defence lawyers who are willing to use every legal trick and device to defend their client on the basis of "providing the best defence." Defence lawyers should also remember their obligation to the community. Many in the community would be horrified if they actually watched how some defence barristers act in court.

I have seen many defence counsel, and Crown prosecutors in action. The best ones, by far, are those on both sides who play fair, who fight cases hard, but who do not play games with the law. Thankfully, the ones who see their role as being true to the spirit and the letter ofthe law outnumber the others by a huge margin.

I remember one defence barrister who would try to distract the jury from hearing important prosecution evidence by various means. I have also seen some excellent defence barristers fight very hard with very little, without resorting to trickery and skullduggery.

However the prosecution are constrained far more by evidence law and the application of common law than the defence, who can almost get away with anything.

In any case the prosecution basically has one chance. If at trial an accused person is found not guilty by a jury, then the crown case is done. Even if the accused gets on national TV and admits to the crime in graphic detail, the crown cannot do a thing. That person cannot be re-tried. The crown cannot appeal a verdict.

Even if compelling new evidence comes up - too bad.

However if the accused is found guilty, then he or she can appeal, to the Court of Criminal Appeal and if necessary to the High Court.

If a person is charged with murder, but found guilty of manslaughter, and he appeals and gets a new trial, the highest charge that he will face is manslaughter, the murder charge cannot be pursued, no matter how strong the evidence or whatever new evidence comes to light.

I have seen trials where two different groups of accused were being tried separately for the same group of offenses. One jury heard very different and contradictory defence evidence to the other jury, but the second jury could not be told of the contradictory evidence given at the earlier trial. If the crown had tried that trick there is no way that the trials would have gone to conclusion.

I am not a lawyer, I not been trained in law, I don't have an axe to grind for one side or the other, I also haven't been charged with anything. But I have had the opportunity to view, as a neutral observer, more trials than most people. I believe that there is already balance in justice.

To Hamlet,

You speak in a refrained and well reasoned manner and present a good case, but, "a man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still", and I'm afraid I still have my concerns about this matter.

Particularly, as mentioned in Michael's article, with regard to sexual assault or rape or whatever it's called these days. The amount of false, vexatious or frivolous accusations made by women must be huge given the statistics of cases that actually go on to prosecution. And then it would seem that even some of those are extremely shaky and fall over.

In Britain, I don't know the Australian stats, only about 2 to 3 percent of accusations result in conviction. That's 97 percent that fail! That's an enormous number. Something very peculiar is going on here.

Some say that things are stacked against the alleged "victim" and they are calling for more simple ways to get a conviction. But I wonder, maybe we're just making it too easy to make the allegations.

To accuse a person of a crime is a very serious matter. A criminal record is devastating to an individual. Not to mention the loss of reputation, being dragged through courts and often the gutter press, for all to see, while the accuser remains anonymous, veiled and protected. Where the accused is innocent, they in reality are the victim and in reality, the victim is the perpetrator.

In my opinion both parties should face the same trial. Let the jury decide who is the real perpetrator and who is the victim. As it stands now, sometimes guilty "victims" are walking away free. That's not right.

Presently, it's far too easy to make bald-faced allegations about people.

I understand "Damien's" situation, but I can see some difficulties with attempts to redress the situation.

It is often said that a very small percentage of sexual assault cases proceed to conviction. There are some reasons for this. One, of course, is that an attack may have taken place, but insufficient evidence is available to go to trial.

Another is that any trial is extremely hard on the complainant. This is made worse in cases where there is more than one accused, because counsel for each accused has the opportunity to ask the same questions, over and over again. Many people could not face this.

Perhaps there is a good argument for the name of the accused in sexual assault cases being not published until after they have been found guilty. A counter argument is where someone may be a serial offender, and other victims may be too afraid to come forward until they hear that their attacker is facing court.

Some countries have legal aid systems where the state pays the legal cost of the accused. If they are not found guilty then they doesn’t pay anything back. If they are found guilty they have to repay the money.

Lastly, men should be educated that there is no such thing as safe sex, in a legal sense. Many men have found themselves paying child support for years when they had been falsely told that their partner was using contraception. Men should be aware that if a woman has been drinking then she is unable to provide informed consent, so that any sexual activity can be considered to be an assault. Even a man who rolls over in the middle of the night and touches a sleeping woman that he is living with in a sexual way, broadly defined, has committed an offence by not asking first. Any sexual activity carries the risk of an accusation, even within marriage where the woman is considering separation and divorce. Perhaps Damien should have considered the possible cost of a few minutes of pleasure before entering the stairwell?

Hamlet, now you're starting to get to the main points of this matter. As you have expressed in detail, heterosexuality has basically been declared illegal by feminist/Marxist Labor governments. So-called rape laws are now ridiculous. On the basis of people having had a drink, I'd guess that 95% of the adult Australian population is guilty of rape. And that's the main reason there's so many spurious allegations.

As so far as warning men about the legal dangers of sex, I think most of them already know. I think it's time we started warning women about them. The law isn't written in a sex specific way you know. What counts one way, also goes the other way. In fact it won't take long before men start to get the idea to get in first with frivolous and vexatious allegations of sexual assault at the police station.

But this of course is the entire intent of those who drafted the laws in the first place. They simply want to drive a wedge between the sexes and create mistrust - destroy traditional marriage, which is a major plank of the Marxist manifesto/policy.

Anyway, frankly I don't think it's going to work. Men and women simply like each other too much and even traditional marriage is making a big comeback right now.

But the anti-sex laws are quite ridiculous, and the statistics are very hard to believe.

Aren't those Marxist Feminists terrible people? First they stop men from beating their wives with a stick, then they actually give women the vote. Then they want to get the police involved just because a man wants to force his wife to have sex with him: Isn't he entitled to use the person who he owns, after all, she was given away to him by her father wasn't he, and she adopted his name to further demonstrate ownership?

And as for those prudes stopping a guy from getting a woman drunk and having sex with them when they didn't know what was going on?

So I take it, Maximus, you would not mind your sister, or your mother, or daughter, being got blotto in a bar and then waking up next to someone that they cannot remember meeting before?

Or better still, imagine yourself, at a party, having a few too many, passing out, then waking up next to a guy that you have never seen before, and then you realise there is a condom hanging out of your colon?

That is what you are suggesting to be acceptable behaviour.

What I am saying is that sex should be free of coercion, freely offered and accepted, by people who know what is going on around them, and who are in a state to make judgements about what they want to do. The law is there to protect people from being used. I take it you don't agree with that, Maximus? By the way, is your first name Gluteus?

Hamlet, I think your slip is showing.

maximus: I hope that you get this message: I could not post it in the hijab thread, at least not for 19 hours...

yes I have been imbibing, you should not have been named in my post, and I will correct that when I can, please accept my apologies:

the site that I was talking about can be found at:

http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?act=idx

You may find it interesting.

And to all the forum members who read this and don't understand what is going on - well, sorry!

Thanks Hamlet,

I did get the message - obviously. But now I'm even more confused. I do not know where you are coming from. But it's not important to know that, it's just important for each to respect the other and I do confess, in the heat of battle sometimes I fire before I identify friend from foe. Fighting, metaphorically speaking, does that to you. But then that's life in the gutter for you.

My apologies too.