'"No, don't, stop. No, don't stop! Yes!"

Of course, "no means no" - except when it obviously doesn't...'

I hope you're just winding them up antiseptic.

Regardless of how much people decide guilt without hearing the full evidence and being part of the Jury, the jury that was there didn't convict.

I love it how pynchme and co decide guilt based on media reports, then myself and antiseptic relay information also from media reports and state the bleeding obvious that the Jury didn't convict, but somehow the woman involved is to be believed to be this shining angel who had never taken drugs before and was taken advantage of by the abusive predator men.

You know what it's called? Spin. The pynchme spin is no more valid than the antiseptic spin. What pynchme wants to believe and what antiseptic wants to believe is the major influence on the spin.

Me, well, I just like challenging the media assigned heroes and villains in any scenario. Like I said pynchme, if a guy had obtained drugs from a girl, been invited back to her room and had sex with her and her friends, passed out and never woken up, there would be stuff all interest in the story.

It would be a simple story of a guy who took a risk with drugs and it ended badly. Certainly nobody would be looking at the girl who sold him the drugs as having any responsibility in it. Certainly there wouldn't be so much venomous hatred of the girl.

Equality will never happen while this patriarchal patronising of women continues, where all women are innocent little virgins who would only ever take drugs or have sex if coerced by a man is always assumed by the likes of pynchme and co.

Psychme

Thank-you for the link about the Brimble case. While this and everything else that I have heard about the Brimble case makes the men involved look suspicious, I cannot see how they could be convicted on the evidence. Furthermore, short of making being creepy a criminal offence, it is unclear what reforms of the legal process might produce more just outcomes. It says something disturbing about our culture that these deadbeats were able to pick-up. I'm sure that many other blokes at the disco were too nice for their own good and went back to their cabin alone.

A journalist named Paul Sheehan wrote a book about some rapes in Sydney called Girls Like You. One of the victims was asked a total of 1971 separate questions by defence lawyers. Limiting the amount of testimony that the victim is required to give is a workable suggestion that might make victims less reluctant to pursue an issue. The defendents in the case used a strategy of stalling, so that one trial was put back nine times. In the well-known Bilal Skaf case, one of the victims lost her nerve and some charges were withdrawn. Courts could also change to limit use of this tactic. None of this would change the outcome of the Brimble case, I'm just trying to keep this discussion productive.

'I'm sure that many other blokes at the disco were too nice for their own good and went back to their cabin alone.'

Haha benk I'm sure there were. Another reason could well be that they weren't offering any free drugs. At many of the bars around Sydney, the guys handing out free lines quite often go home with some very attractive ladies. I'm happy to pay for the odd drink, but my stash is mine mine mine!

Some guys with more scrilla can afford to be eternally generous I suppose and with this generosity comes a steady line of willing ladies. I still rock back to the Ivy and the Establishment some days to relive the shallow world of Easton Ellis type excess. Actually, Silvestri would be great for the part of Bateman!

'Furthermore, short of making being creepy a criminal offence...'

Don't knock it. I'm sure many women would have Silvestri jailed just for those nasty comments about fat women. Ah, I remember the circus fondly, when the TV news showed photos of Brimble 10 years younger and 20 kilos lighter just to portray their villain that little bit more of a shallow misogynist creep.

If a charming Hugh Grant type had been so careless in not helping a drunk and drugged woman, the audience would have gone all doe eyed and thought the poor guy panicked in a crazy situation where drugs have gone wrong.

Or if a beautiful young girl had been the supplier of the drugs, well, she'd be as innocent as Schapelle Corby, or a silly girl doing something 'out of character', with her mum crying 'my daughter wouldn't use drugs, I just know it!'.

Oh how our attitudes to the facts are changed by the personalities involved and the masters of outrage.

Benk- Thank you for your sensible ideas on trying to improve the justice system which so often gets it wrong in these cases.

Houellebecq you say <The Jury that was there didn’t convict>

I watched the media interview a man on T.V one night who had been bought to trial on 3 separate occasions by women unknown to each other; for rape. Three times, three different juries found him not guilty. None of the juries were permitted to know about the previous rape accusations as is the law ,so as not to predudice the jury in the case before them.
On all three occasions this man grabbed the women as they left a club and held a knife in their sides before committing the offence.
He convinced the jury that he was a kind, loving family man, whereas the woman at each trial had been leaving a night club where they had had a couple to a few drinks. In the juries eyes this threw the character of the female rape victim into a negative area apparently as they thought any woman who had been coming out of a club after having a couple of drinks (especially by herself) must be of low character and possibly a liar.
Whereas a man coming out of a club after having a few drinks who said he had been attacked would not have been thought of as a liar of low character.

Antiseptic- <Would you go off drinking and taking drugs with a bunch of loose cannons like these men are alleged to have been.>

It is only your assumption and the evidence of the accused that Mrs. Brimble voluntarily took any of the drugs that the men had in their possession.

I believe they gave her the drug whilst drinking in the bar. I think they probably administered one smaller dose earlier on and it made her a lot more intoxicated then she would have been so that her judgement was impaired as to the dangers of the situation. When it failed to stupefy her to the extent they were hoping; to get her back to their cabin instead of hers, they gave her another much larger dose. A compliance dose. Of course those in the bar see only a woman laughing (this drug you told me induces a pleasant euphoric state or heightened pleasure or some such thing ) but onlookers in the bar don’t realize that she is laughing and relaxed(unwary) because she has been slipped a dose of GBH.

When the huge dose or doses she was given finally started to have their affect she died an awful death unnoticed and unaided by the selfish, self-interested, immature excuses for men, one of who pushed a dying or dead woman on the floor in disgust.

I think she was a lonely woman who went on that cruise hoping to find love and companionship with only one man. She may have thought it was one of the men in this group who no doubt was being as charming and nice to her as he could be . How could she know he was plotting with his mates to drug her and rape her with absolutely no regard for her safety when issuing lethal amounts of a dangerous drug.

But she was a woman having a drink in a bar with a man and his friends and so she must be of low moral character and they must be innocent. According to the jury anyway.

sharkfin:"I believe"

Yes, we know that, but we've already seen that you know nothing whatever about GHB or the context in which it is used, so your "belief", no matter how strong, is worth precisely zero in evaluating the case.

As has been pointed out, Mrs Brimble was no paragon. According to friends she had sought an aids test after one liaison and her doctor testified that he had prescribed her the "morning after" pill shortly before she went on the voyage. Let's not forhet she went on the voyage (on a notorious "shagger's ship") alone, leaving her husband and kids at home.

All of the evidence is that she participated willingly in a risky activity and paid the price. C'est la vie.

You still haven't answered my simple question: would you have ever gone off partying with a group of "loose cannons" like these men? Anyone care to try that one?

Speaking for myself, there's not a snowball's chance, I've known too many like them and I take personal responsibility for avoiding getting involved. Mrs Brimble should have done the same.