Foxy,

Belief without evidence is for the religious.

Without a scrap of physical evidence, video or witnesses the only evidence is BH's testimony which due to its inconsistencies creates doubt that is not just reasonable but substantial. That's why I agree with the ACT police that the trial should never have gone ahead.

Did rape occur? Maybe or maybe not. Only two people actually will ever know.

AND, they were both LIBERAL PARTY members so who would believe them.

shadowminister,

The evidence was provided by the security-guard
who found Ms Higgins naked and in a dishevelled
disorientated state and crying.
And other witnesses - whose testimonies were
believable. As also the reason why he brought Ms
Higgins to the Parliament offices on a Saturday
evening in the first place were questionable.

It all added up. Plus her mental state then and since.
I am surprised that you would even defend this man.
Didn't Ms Higgins get a settlement?

Foxy,

That the only item of clothing BH had was a dress covered with puke, BH being naked was not unsurprising. That she was disoriented probably had something to do with the vast amount of alcohol she'd recently consumed. The guard did not witness any rape nor did BH claim that she'd been raped at that point.

In fact, BH only claimed to have been raped a couple of days later when it looked like she could be fired, and even then, she refused to take a forensic test. As far as the court is concerned there is no evidence that any sexual contact occurred between BH and BL.

That BL abandoned BH was a scumbag thing to do. But raping BH, that's a matter of conjecture.

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Dear shadowminister,

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Yes, I understand your reaction. It seems quite shocking, but it is a most regrettable paradox that such a noble ideology as the presumption of innocence should produce such an immoral result of protecting a huge majority of criminals and denying justice to so many innocent victims, most of whom are women and children and the more vulnerable members of society.

Not all sex crimes are committed with the use of physical force or violence. In some cases, psychological coercion is the “modus operandi”. In others, particularly in the case of very young children, it is a long and patient exercise whereby the aggressor abuses their position of influence and authority in order to plant the seeds of desire in their victim, progressively bringing it to fruition until the victim finally does whatever the aggressor wants him or her to do, without having to take the slightest initiative themselves.

There is no violence or physical force, nor is there any evidence of psychological coercion. The victim is persuaded that it is she or he is the depraved one and the sole person responsible for whatever occurred, the aggressor being the victim.

That is known under the technical term of “sexual grooming”. It is the duty of society to protect its children from various predators of that nature. Unfortunately, like all other sex offenders, they too benefit from the legal immunity of the presumption of innocence.

I have no doubt that the thought that the presumption of innocence for sex crimes might be repealed in Australia could cause a certain amount of anxiety among many of our highly respectable law-abiding compatriots.

Interestingly, though, in the UK, whose judiciary is not reputed to harbor “kangaroo courts”, the legal historian, Bruce Smith, indicates that many English criminal defendants in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries did not benefit from a presumption of innocence but, rather, struggled against a statuary presumption of guilt designed to combat various forms of misappropriation.

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Smith adds that “in a ringing dissent”, Lord Steyn, a life peer (judicial) in the House of Lords, having stepped down as a Law Lord in 2005, observed that nearly 40% of indictable offenses in England contain some type of statutory presumption against the defendant.

Reflecting on these figures, he sharply criticized Parliament for the "arbitrary and indiscriminate manner" in which it "made inroads on the basic presumption of innocence".

Though Lord Steyn's criticisms may well have been justified, the 40% of indictable offenses he was referring to did not include sex-related offenses for which the overwhelming majority of perpetrators continue to enjoy judicial immunity by application of the principle "presumed innocent until proven guilty".

Given the adverse effect it has on justice when applied to sex crimes, it should be repealed.

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