What a circus indeed. What an expensive circus! With Higgins clowning outside the court, possibly getting herself into more trouble.

Don’t drink…and save yourself a lot of money and trouble you’d otherwise avoided with sober thought.

Seems to me that that is the truest and most accurate message in this case which is all too common.

All this dilemma needs is a bright young self motivated entrepreneurIal lawyer to sue the alcohol industry for damages and bingo, end of problem,; then the children can go back to play sensibly.

An enjoyable night out, with a promise of romance, need not gravitate to a dogs breakfast next morning for opportunistic lawyers, congregating around a police cell like blowflies.

Dan.

AND…No means no !! Learn that one well.

Dan

Dan

Good advice.

It seems to me in a couple of prominent cases the young women want to be 'unshamed' or told it wasn't their fault. But it was partly their fault through drinking or putting themselves in vulnerable situations. According to feminists that is victim blaming. Note that a candidate from Alaska for US Vice President had a pregnant 15 year old daughter. Nothing was done to charge the father with statutory rape so it seems the opprobrium is selective.

Hard to prove or concocted rape allegations seem to be more of a 21st century phenomenon. Back in the 20th century many women must have regretted trysts of a nonviolent nature. They didn't seek revenge or unshaming but put it down to experience. This new craze is a facet of woke culture.

For mine the jury was, I believe, sabotaged from within and hardly a first for trial by jury on untestable he said she said, "evidence".

It's long past time that UNBEATABLE space age lie detection that we have now, was covertly deployed to test the veracity of witness statements.

Without which, the innocent/verballed will continue to go to jail. And the serial guilty will yet again go free, with only their victims serving life sentences!
Alan B.

Our Westminster, i.e., ancient, feudal, adversarial system of "justice" is, I believe, hardly about justice whatsoever but, I believe, solely about winning. And puts victims on trial after trashing/tearing it to shreds, as much as possible, their reputations and honesty.

It gives those, I believe, with the deepest pockets, all the advantages and those without financial resources, none or very much second, third and fourth-rate outcomes.

Milks available legal aid, I believe, to the max as the best outcome for the legal profession rather than to advantage the victim.

It's time to simply illuminate the truth and impose true appropriate justice on the criminals and perpetrators.

It should only ever be, do the crime and do the time.

And wherever possible, rehabilitate the law breakers.

Treat drug addiction as a medical problem rather than a criminal jailable offence, e.g.

Uses your innocent social contacts and friendships to imply impropriety or worse and by implication alone, that is for the most part, free of validating facts.

Unbeatable space age lie detection can be used in very private non-hostile circumstance to establish for al, time the total veracity of the "sworn evidence" What we want to expose and rarely ever actual do in full, is the factual truth. Or rarely if ever, expose perjured evidence which is also a crime!
Alan B.

In the first news report I heard, a juror's box of papers was knocked off the table accidentally.
A paper fell out, and its content was noticed.
Subsequently, the story changes slightly to make it more believable.
But I don't for one minute think it happened like that.
For that particular box to fall, and for that particular paper to be exposed?
And for the content of that paper to be recognised immediately as inappropriate?
Accepting all that is just too much to for my imagination to cope with.
Perhaps the document boxes were being checked?
Perhaps there was a suspiscion that something was amiss?
In any case, the paper was out of the box.
Which meant that the cat was well and truly out of the bag.
And quite logically and quite rightly, the trial was stopped at that point.

I got to thinking a bit more about this.
The deliberation of jurors is private.
No outsider can lawfully interfere or influence those deliberations.
Surely any materials jurors have or use in the jury room should be private too?
Any notes or drawings they make and so on.
Accidental access to them by any person should not involve reporting anything they contained?
To me, that is akin to law enforcement using unlawfully acquired evidence.
Which of course would not be accepted.
I know I have no intimate knowledge of court procedures.
So perhaps I have no right to comment.
But it all sure seems strange to me.
However, once the intelligence re the document was relayed to the judge, he or she had no option but to act?

It's not the trial imploding, it's the stupidity of the system that allowed this Higgins sheilah to try to make money from conning an innocent bloke (innocent as being drunk).
If there is such a thing as Justice he'll get off & she gets what she deserves !
Also, the security outfit in the big outhouse needs a pay cut in line with their performance !

Gidday Taswegian,

Yer darn right mate.

Here I was thinking if a bloke like you were to get maggoted and one of your acquaintances who leans that way decided he should feel free to drop your dacks and give you a good rogering while you were out to it, then you would have cause to have a bit of a gripe about it.

Seems not since as you say you would have been partly to blame. Wouldn't need to go to the coppers or even get upset, just cop it on the chin and get a nice soft cushion to sit on for a few day. She'll be right hey.

Whether or not Brittany Higgins was unwise to get so drunk she passed out has no bearing on Bruce Lehrmann’s culpability if he did, in fact, rape her.

That the trial was abandoned and rescheduled is an awful but necessary tragedy which will prolong the undoubted misery of both accused and accuser in this case.

As usual, Arndt ignores or misrepresents facts and sources. For example, the Elle magazine article does not “attack the court system”; it uses the case to illustrate the “perfect victim” fallacy is sexual assault cases.

Alan,
Could you give us a reference to the modern lie detector?

Alcohol, a mind altering drug, causes so many problems. It is worse than illicit drugs because it is socially acceptable.

Its not the "Higgins trial" as this misinformed woman would have us believe, its the "Lehrmann trial" an accused rapists, facing court on serious police charges. You would think from the protection this Liberal Party slug has received it was indeed the "Higgins trial". All I can say is how fortuitous those "papers" fell onto the floor, right in front of an obliging court officer, an wow the trial is now aborted. It has all the stench we seen with the alleged rape of a 16 year old girl by another senior Liberal, 'Cry Baby' Porter.

I have a modest understanding of the Lehrmann/Higgins conflict.
This is based on news reports, so it could be flawed.
Whatever the real situation is, I think it better to avoid discussion of any evidence so far presented?
Leave the rights or wrongs of the litigation alone, until the matter is finalised?
If the community does this, it gives the best chance of a fair result in any subsequent court action?
However, the legal procedures surrounding this action are common to all trials.
So they are ripe for comment?
We can thus speculate about what might be going on?
Provided we are circumspect and logical in what we say.
And we avoid scathing remarks.

I.M. Unbeatable space age lie detection is in two parts. One part is thermal imaging of the brain, given certain sections of the brain ALWAYS light up when deception is contemplated.

The other part is CAFR, i.e., Computer assisted facial recognition technology, which detects invisible to the naked human eye, micro-second facial movements which also indicate intended deception.

When the two systems are simultaneously deployed covertly as a team system, their ability to detect lies is infallible. Even when the target or serial liar, can time and again, easily beat the polygraph.

Our current system of justice is inordinately expensive and moves with glacial speed! Something we do in months costing millions could be sorted in mere minutes, in separate chambers, for a couple of hundred dollars.

With the perpetrators, career criminals and perjurers getting the raw end of the pineapple rather than the victim, whose private predilections ought never ever be on trial in monstrous miscarriages of justice!

True justice ought not ever be about winning but rather the illumination of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

People (usually raised as privileged brats from hell) who break a sacred trust to protect an inebriated partner from harm, including harm they may also inflict just because they've had a few, cannot be excused and lower than a snake's belly, sub-humans! And never so drunk as to not know what you are doing!

And ought to be castrated or be lined up against a wall, with them and their flawed mindset and genes, shot at dawn. Or at the very least, stump up a couple of mill. in damages

If only to ram home that this is serious son and not a game that one routinely (ha, ha, he, he, haw, haw, gurgle choke ho, ho) gets away with!

Only men rape women and sometimes other men, it's never ever the other way round!
Alan B.

Only men rape women and sometimes other men, it's never ever the other way round!
Alan B.
You absolutely certain of that ?

My only interest in the case is to see just how corrupt our judicial system has become and how much power the media/social media have.

In the end, there is no evidence that any sexual activity occurred let alone non-consensual sex. She said/he said.

By the rules of beyond reasonable doubt, that's the end of the matter. But by the rules of mob justice things look very different. We'll now have to wait until 2023 to see which form of justice prevails.

With the possibility of a contempt charge hanging over Higgins, there might not be another court case. In my view, given the shameless prejudging of the media, even politicians, and the 'advertising' of herself by Higgins, there should have been no trial in the first place.

Like democracy, justice is going out the door in Australia.

I'm interested in how two people under the influence of alcohol or whatever where permitted the premises. Does security not breathalyse people entering ? I can understand during daylight hours when there are literally hundreds if not thousands frequenting Parliament House it would seem unnecessary but in the middle of the night when it is quite obvious that people are under the influence I would demand a breath test !

What about security staff in Parliament House. Are they as useless as those who stand back and watch Marxist thugs desecrate works of art in galleries; who don't prevent from entry morons wearing 'just stop oil' t-shirts.

These two drunks had no right to be in a Parliament House office at the time they were. A Minister's office, no less.

Indy,

I think 'Lying Cow' Reynolds and 'Big Payout' Cash were in charge of security that night. They tried to sweep the dirt under the carpet.

Yes, if security were doing their job, two drunks would have not had access to a minister's office/chamber or the building! But rather, separated with both sent to their respective home addresses or their parents'/siblings' homes to they could dry out without further harm.

The place where they got so legless needs to answer questions also. Why weren't these people assisted into a courtesy car and poured into their respective beds or some such. Or to a hospital to ensure some inappropriate drug hadn't been added to the female's drink? And not uncommon in certain unsavory circles.

Dan is right no means no and a drunk out of her mind female cannot in any way say an enthusiastic yes.

I was at a party as a young man when an incredibly attractive but highly inebriated lady tried to come on to me. It took every ounce of willpower I had to resist and keep my pecker in my pants. I mean she invited me to a bedroom and to lock the door! And left me in no doubt whatsoever what came next!

My mother raised me to consider the consequences. And to ask myself in such circumstance if I wanted that women to be the mother of my child, a possible outcome of such unrestrained irresponsible behaviour. And if the answer was no then it wasn't on. And to never take advantage of a drunken lady! I am no saint, but I can say that I never crossed that line.
Alan B.

"Higgins trial implodes"

I wish she would implode.
- Sick of hearing about it.

Seems to me they both went out for drinks and were seen openly kissing / making out.
Then she gets herself spastically drunk and who knows what happened then...

Gets found naked in the Parliament House and word gets out, possibly back to her boyfriend so what does she do...

"He raped me".

Honestly I don't even care.
All of these stories these days are total bs.

Like that Grace Tame, Aussie of the year.
Didn't she set out to deliberately seduce her teacher and also set out to try to break up his marriage?

Then the hindsight narrative, 'He took advantage of me'.

Look at her now laughing all the way to the bank with an easy life at the expense of ruining someone else's.
- Probably gets paid for speeches to other disgruntled women.

Well played Grace, but you're still a piece of crap in my book.
- Brittany Higgins likewise.

Hey Alan B.
"And to never take advantage of a drunken lady!"

Do you think those same ladies weren't thinking about taking some drunken bloke home before they even set out for the night?

Let me tell you, just as often as not THEY WERE PLANNING on taking some half drunk guy home,
- That's the reason above all others why the went out in the first place..

Not just to 'dance with the girls' Alan B, but for some 'no-strings dick'.
- Women are sexual creatures too.

As for the blokes, well they went out just HOPING they might take someone home.

We can all pretend that women are innocent wholesome creatures who's minds resemble bible-study teachers, but it's really just a fantasy.
They go out to the club to get laid just the same as blokes do.

I see mention of two sure-fire methods for ascertaining when a person is not telling the truth.
That is all well and good.
However, knowing someone is lying or withholding information is one thing.
Knowing what that information is is quite another.
How can either of those 'methods' elicit the truth?
How can they cause someone to tell the story of their (possible) misdeeds?
Maybe, instead, that someone is trying to hide something innocent but embarrassing?
And anyway, under present law, they are not required to incriminate themselves?
What we need is an infallible but harmless truth drug?
And a legal framework to allow its use?

So true Armchair Critic. In the mid 60s I bought my yacht, & moved onto it at a marina in Sydney. It, with my motor racing was a great life style, with lots of interesting people living on boats there. But the yacht was an ex serious racing boat, not yet set up for storing all my gear. To overcome this I took a room in a share house at Mosman. It was a big place with 7 bedrooms, shared by 2 couples, 4 single girls & me.

I was pretty busy with motor racing & not into the "clubbing" scene at all, but I couldn't help noticing the girls were. There were often a couple or more strange men wandering around, or driving off Sunday mornings.

Early one morning one of the girls who hadn't "pulled" came into my room, & crawled into my bed. A few days later one of the couples led me aside & suggested sleeping with flat mates was a recipe for disaster, & gave me some examples she had seen. It didn't matter much, by then I was buying my business that gave me storage space, & the yacht fit out was well advances giving me suitable facilities for my gear, so I moved out of the share place.

Out of interest one Saturday night I visited the Mosman Pub , one of the "clubbing" sites at the time. It couldn't have been more obvious what people were doing there, with no couples, but groups of single blokes & birds flitting from table to table. I gather that was what most singles did.

Hassy, there has always been promiscuous behaviour in all societies, but there also has been rape. I'm sure back in the day your conquests were legendary, maybe not, but how does this relate to the Lehrmann trial? All the Prosecution has to prove is Lehrmann is guilty of rape, not an easy task I would say.

The role of the young buck, is to identify and repel the dangers of coquette ingenuity.
Here is the evidence of failure and it’s dramatic consequences!

Fathers, teach your sons well, (If you actually get the chance of any input towards their future welfare).

Dan.

As I have said on other threads, this trial hinges upon what happened in a closed office with no witnesses.

There is no physical evidence, no corroborating evidence and no uninvolved witnesses.

Other than Higgins' testimony there is nothing to suggest that any form of sexual intercourse occurred at all.

In essence, this trial is Higgins' word against the word of BL.

As it is reasonable to assume that BH is lying (especially considering the numerous inconsistencies in her testimony) it is not possible to prove BL's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

This should never have got to trial.

I beg to differ.

Enough witnesses have testified and the inconsistencies
of Mr Lehrmann's testimonies don't match up with those
of the witnesses. Whereas Ms Higgins gave a "inherently
vivid and compelling" description of the alleged rape.
She did not embellish her account and was considered a
credible witness.

Five questions have been listed to be asked:

1) Was the accused attracted to the complainant?
Witnesses have confirmed that he was.

2) Why did Mr Lehrmann go to Parliament House on a
Saturday morning? Nothing urgent needed to be done
workwise according to his own staffers.

3) Did he have sex with Ms Higgins?

4) Dis she consent?

5) Was the accused reckless as far as to whether Ms Higgins
consented?

This case definitely needs to be heard in court - and
not be further delayed by any jurors conveniently dropping their
unallowed "research" onto court floors.

If this was regular people on a friday night up at the local, no-one would give a crap.
(and even now I don't)

A few of those questions could equally be asked of Higgins Foxy, or is it only ever the woman's point of view considered.

'Was the accused reckless as far as to whether BL consented.'

What if he never wanted to sleep with her and never would've unless blind rotten drunk, and if she was all over him like a rash?

What about women taking advantage of drunk men?
How do the ugly girls get laid on Friday night exactly?

I don't support rape if it did indeed occur, but when two people are blind drunk and seen to be affectionate towards each other, and in the midst of that drunkenness, one thing leads to another and both might be guilty of bad judgement then who's fault is it exactly, and how can any of us actually know what actually happened?

Since it's impossible for anyone to know what happened, it's not even an actual case, all one can do is speculate.
Great for the media, and completely pointless for anything else.

Hi AC,

That's true, don't know why a Liberal raping a Liberal would be news, Liberals have been "raping" Australia since the days of 'Pig Iron' Bob.

Hi AC,

Why did Lehrmann go to Parliament House on a
Saturday morning?

His testimonies were full of conflict. His own
staffers contradicted his statements. Whereas Higgins
gave a "inherently vivid and compelling" description of
the alleged rape. She did not embellish her account and
was a credible witness.

In any case - I dare say that it will be interesting to
see what the end result of this case will be.

Foxy,

Firstly Lehrmann didn't testify so he didn't have any testimonies.

The inconsistencies in his police interview were trivial in that they were unrelated to the time that he was in the office.

Higgins's testimony was riddled with huge discrepancies.

1 she claimed that the bruise photographed on her one leg was caused by BL, but testified that he put his knee on the other leg.

2 told the media that BL removed her underwear, but admitted that she wasn't wearing any,

3 told the police that she made a doctor's appointment but was too distraught to attend it when she was lunching with friends.

If that is your definition of a credible testimony many people including myself disagree with you.

If the requirement to convict BL is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, then he cannot be convicted.

SM,

Are you claiming a LIBERAL PARTY member would tell lies? Oh yeah, there was 'Cry Baby' Porter, 'Lying Cow' Reynolds and 'Cover Up' Cash. I rest my case.

There is also Pauliar the lying village idiot. We all know that the greens cannot stop lying.

Once again you have won the title of village idiot by clearly not understanding what was discussed. Then like a twat attacking a point that was never made.

Lehrmann does not have to prove anything. The onus on the prosecution is to prove that BL raped BH. With zero physical evidence and no witnesses, the only real evidence against BL is BH's testimony. Something that fwit greenies don't understand.

If there is even the slightest chance that BH's story wasn't true the only verdict could be not guilty. That BH's "recollection" varied so much there is considerable doubt as to her accuracy.

SM,

"That BH's "recollection" varied so much there is considerable doubt as to her accuracy."

Must be a LIBERAL PARTY thing, with 'Cry Baby' Porter, 'Lying Cow' Reynolds and 'Cover Up' Cash, all suffering from memory lapses about the subject of rape at various times. And there is you, with your forgetfulness about what you posted re, the 'Beat Up' Bolt case and the 'Cry Baby' Porter matter. Yes, must be a LIBERAL PARTY thing.

Pauliar,

How about your constant lying about what I said?

You are a liar and a fraud. Proven again and again.