Speaker 1: From The Australian. He is what's on the front. I'm
Speaker 1: Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, June seventeen, twenty twenty six. Treasurer
Speaker 1: Barnaby Joyce. That's the hope in One Nation as it
Speaker 1: lines up its star recruit to take on Jim Chalmers
Speaker 1: in the shadow Treasury portfolio, and Pauline Hanson lines up
Speaker 1: her talent. Hanson's addressing the Press Club today as she
Speaker 1: campaigns to be taken seriously as an alternative prime minister.
Speaker 1: A new revelation in the case of murdered five year
Speaker 1: old girl Kumanjai Little Baby, police believed her mother was
Speaker 1: at imminent risk of murder or serious injury from a
Speaker 1: domestic assault in the months before the child's disappearance. The
Speaker 1: Australians revealing today that during Little Baby's lifetime, police had
Speaker 1: been called to reports of assaults allegedly perpetrated by her
Speaker 1: father on more than thirty occasions. Those stories are live
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot AU. A night
Speaker 1: at the pub ends in an accusation of rape, and
Speaker 1: now the woman at the center of one of Australia's
Speaker 1: most controversial cases is turning her fury on the prosecutors,
Speaker 1: she says, let her down. Today, our National Chief of Staff,
Speaker 1: Ellie Dudley, is here for a close look at a
Speaker 1: deeply human story of trust betrayed. Stay with us. Ellie
Speaker 1: Dudley is the Australian's National Chief of Staff and she
Speaker 1: spent several years reporting a case that's absolutely intriguing. It's
Speaker 1: about a New South Wales woman who was at the
Speaker 1: center of a sexual assault case. Ellie, tell me this woman.
Speaker 1: You've given her the name Tina Styleman. What happened to Tina?
Speaker 2: So, Tina believes that she was raped. She was overseas
Speaker 2: and she came home one night earlier than expected, and
Speaker 2: she was planning to meet up with her boyfriend later
Speaker 2: that night. Before she did that, she went to a
Speaker 2: pub and she met with a friend of hers who
Speaker 2: she had met on Tinder a couple of years earlier.
Speaker 2: They had had various sexual relations, but they were just friends.
Speaker 2: She went to the pub, they had one beer, they
Speaker 2: had a second beer, they had a third beer, and
Speaker 2: then she doesn't remember a single thing until she woke
Speaker 2: up in his bed a few hours later. She reported
Speaker 2: it to the police. She went to hospital. She describes
Speaker 2: herself as the model complainant. She told a friend about it.
Speaker 2: She told her boyfriend about it quite quickly, and then
Speaker 2: it went through trial. So she spent multiple years going
Speaker 2: through the justice system to then get a not guilty verdict.
Speaker 2: Now that not guilty verdict, a jury found quite quickly
Speaker 2: within an hour that the man that she believes raped
Speaker 2: her actually didn't and that was something that she came
Speaker 2: to terms with. She understood that that was something that
Speaker 2: could occur. But the thing that was incredibly distressing to
Speaker 2: her was that a few weeks later, the judge in
Speaker 2: the matter delivered a cost judgment, which is effectively saying
Speaker 2: to the defendant, the man who she believes raped her,
Speaker 2: the government will pay your legal bills. And in that
Speaker 2: cost judgment he delivered a scathing rebuke of the Office
Speaker 2: of the Director of Public Prosecutions in New South Wales
Speaker 2: for running meritless rape cases, that is, rape cases that
Speaker 2: never had any prospect of a conviction from the outset.
Speaker 2: They were never going to result in a guilty verdict.
Speaker 2: And for Dena Stehman, she went through this process. She
Speaker 2: trusted the prosecutors. She raised them multiple times, well I
Speaker 2: don't remember anything, I can't necessarily say that I didn't
Speaker 2: consent because I was blacked out, and she was hoping
Speaker 2: that they were sitting on a pile of evidence that
Speaker 2: would prove her believed perpetrators guilt. That pile of evidence
Speaker 2: never eventuated, and so she was instead left as a
Speaker 2: complainant in this case that was deemed meritless by a judge.
Speaker 1: A voice actor is reading excerpts of Tina Starhleman's interview
Speaker 1: with Ellie.
Speaker 2: I really felt like something else had been taken from me.
Speaker 2: I would not have progressed the matter if I had
Speaker 2: any idea that the prospects of success in terms of
Speaker 2: a guilty verdict were so low. In the few years
Speaker 2: that you've been reporting on this, this phrase meritless rape
Speaker 2: cases has really stuck with me, and I think I'd
Speaker 2: probably assumed that what it referred to was women or
Speaker 2: victims who were making complaints that were vexatious, that were
Speaker 2: clearly untrue. Your interview with Tina Stahlemlan, I think, brings
Speaker 2: a whole new level of nuance to it. She is
Speaker 2: so shattered by the fact that this prosecution went ahead
Speaker 2: when it didn't have a chance of succeeding, But she
Speaker 2: hasn't resiled from her belief.
Speaker 1: That she did not consent to the six that happened.
Speaker 1: What's happened in New South Wales and so many other
Speaker 1: jurisdictions I think is that we've got used to the
Speaker 1: idea that very drunk people cannot act actually consent to sex.
Speaker 1: That consent has to be active and ongoing. So help
Speaker 1: me understand here why it was meritless. She was quite drunk.
Speaker 1: She'd had at least four drinks I think, maybe fine five.
Speaker 1: He had had a similar number of drinks, but presumably
Speaker 1: was not as intoxicated as her. They were in his house.
Speaker 1: She went to the hospital straight away and got a
Speaker 1: rape kid. Male DNA was found in her genital area
Speaker 1: in her underwear. She had bruising on her genitals. But
Speaker 1: what about that is meritless.
Speaker 2: It was never a question of did they have sex.
Speaker 2: They both agreed that they had sex. When he testified
Speaker 2: in court, he said that she actually came on to
Speaker 2: him quite aggressively, that she initiated the sexual intercourse. The
Speaker 2: reason that it's meritless, or the judge found it to
Speaker 2: be meritless, was that there actually wasn't any evidence to
Speaker 2: prove that she didn't consent. And when I spoke to
Speaker 2: her just recently for this article, she believes that she
Speaker 2: didn't consent, but she can't say it for certain. The
Speaker 2: only person she believes who will ever be able to
Speaker 2: say if she consented or not is her believed perpetrator.
Speaker 2: But for the judge to say that it was a
Speaker 2: meritless rape case, what he's saying is that there isn't
Speaker 2: any evidence besides her, Well, I think I didn't consent.
Speaker 2: I can't say for certain because I was black out,
Speaker 2: but I don't think I consented. There's nothing beyond that.
Speaker 2: There was no evidence beyond that to prove that the
Speaker 2: rape occurred.
Speaker 1: And I guess this is the point too, because you think, well,
Speaker 1: what evidence could there possibly be? I mean, there could
Speaker 1: be CCTV of them leaving the pub with him dragging
Speaker 1: her by the hand, for example, Or there could be
Speaker 1: an eyewitness who said that she was needed to be
Speaker 1: carried up the stairs because she was so drunk that
Speaker 1: she couldn't walk independently. Those might be things that would
Speaker 1: suggest that there were evidence that she didn't consent, But
Speaker 1: in most sexual encounters, it's one person's word against another.
Speaker 2: Isn't it totally And it's something that we've come to
Speaker 2: terms with over the past decade or so. Rape isn't
Speaker 2: a bad man grabbing you in an alley and forced
Speaker 2: to have sex. That's not where most rapes occur. Most
Speaker 2: rapes are. They're day rapes. They're sexual intercourse you didn't
Speaker 2: consent to or didn't want to have with someone that.
Speaker 1: You know, or you consent up to a point and
Speaker 1: then something happens that you're not consenting too, like the
Speaker 1: removal of a condom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And this is something that we've seen a
Speaker 2: wave of laws across the country of affirmative consent laws
Speaker 2: saying that consent needs to be ongoing, it needs to
Speaker 2: be active, and both parties need to agree to have
Speaker 2: sex continuously throughout the sexual encounter. And that's a reaction
Speaker 2: to cases like this.
Speaker 1: Now the new South Wales government has answered the call,
Speaker 1: announcing a shift to what's called an affirmative model of consent.
Speaker 2: This is a major overhaul to sexual violence laws here
Speaker 2: in Queensland.
Speaker 3: Victorian government making consent classes mandatory in state schools.
Speaker 1: So the prosecutors didn't have any third parties, saying that
Speaker 1: they saw her being dragged up the stairs. They didn't
Speaker 1: have evidence like that, so the critique from the judge
Speaker 1: suggests that they should not have run this matter at all,
Speaker 1: which makes me wonder, how are these new active consent
Speaker 1: laws ever going to get before juries In cases where
Speaker 1: a woman or a victim believes that they have been
Speaker 1: raped and the elleghed perpetrator says that the sex was consensual,
Speaker 1: victims who were drunk are probably not going to remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's what makes sexual assault such a devastating
Speaker 2: and challenging crime, you know, it's he said, she said.
Speaker 2: It was interesting during the Bruce Lehmon Britney Higgins saga.
Speaker 2: It was something where during the criminal trial we never
Speaker 2: heard from Bruce Lehman. Bruce Lehman was the defendant and
Speaker 2: he had a right to silence. He sat there and
Speaker 2: didn't say anything throughout the entire trial. Brittany Higgins, however,
Speaker 2: gave evidence as the complainant. She was torn to shreds
Speaker 2: in the witness box, and we didn't hear anything from
Speaker 2: Bruce Lehman until he was in the witness box for
Speaker 2: the defamation claim that he took out against Network ten.
Speaker 2: He claims they destroyed his life by airing the first
Speaker 2: interview with Brittney Higgins in a case that saw him
Speaker 2: tried but never convicted of rape. If you bring a
Speaker 2: defamation claim, then you have to give evidence, you have
Speaker 2: to testify, and when he started speaking, you go, oh,
Speaker 2: hold on, a lot of his story doesn't add up,
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. And then ultimately a federal court judge
Speaker 2: found on the balance of probabilities that he did rpe
Speaker 2: Britney Higgins.
Speaker 3: Justice, finding that not only did Bruce Lehreman write Britney
Speaker 3: Higgins in Parliament House, but that he would have got
Speaker 3: away with it if he hadn't soon network ten for defamation.
Speaker 2: And I think that illustrates that he said she said
Speaker 2: so well. In the case of Tina Staleman, her alleged
Speaker 2: perpetrator did give evidence. But in a lot of these
Speaker 2: cases you don't even hear from one side of the matter.
Speaker 2: Not to say that they should. The right to silence
Speaker 2: is an incredible important part of our justice system, but
Speaker 2: they're challenging their complex and I don't think it's ever
Speaker 2: really been nailed of how you get justice in these situations.
Speaker 1: It is very reminiscent of the Bruce Lemon Brittany Higgins situation.
Speaker 3: They were shocking allegations which rocked Parliament House, but tonight
Speaker 3: sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Of course, Bruce Lemon was not convicted in the set
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. The jury was dismissed after a jura was
Speaker 1: found bringing research materials into the jury room. The prosecutors
Speaker 1: decided not to rerun that case. Bruce Lamon, of course,
Speaker 1: has always denied any wrongdoing despite having lost that defamation case.
Speaker 1: But on the balance of probabilities, just as Michael Lee
Speaker 1: found that Brittany Higgins was very, very drunk, he wasn't
Speaker 1: sure whether she had said no on a loop, which
Speaker 1: is what she claimed, but really he found that she
Speaker 1: was too drunk to consent, and that Bruce Lamon knew that.
Speaker 1: That makes me wonder is on the balance of probabilities
Speaker 1: the only way you're ever going to get a conviction
Speaker 1: in a case like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's what's so interesting about that case specimically
Speaker 2: is that I think for a lot of people there
Speaker 2: was a sense of vindication when Justice Lee handed down
Speaker 2: his judgment because there was finally an answer. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I actually don't know what the solution.
Speaker 1: Is In the Tenna styleman matter. Paul Tyler be accused.
Speaker 1: That's the pseudonym you've given him, because of course we
Speaker 1: can't reveal their real identities, denied any wrongdoing, pleaded not guilty,
Speaker 1: and was found not guilty by a jury, as you say,
Speaker 1: in just one hour. But it's a horrendous ordeal to
Speaker 1: go through being charged with a criminal offense, especially something
Speaker 1: like that. It would have had lifelong impacts on him.
Speaker 1: And that's part of the critique of the judge. Isn't
Speaker 1: it that it's on the DPP to only run prosecutions
Speaker 1: where there is a reasonable chance of conviction, because otherwise
Speaker 1: you're destroying two lives, creating false hope in the complainant
Speaker 1: and creating a shadow of guilt over the accused. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned, I've been on these cases, on cases.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think we've had six judges maybe more who have
Speaker 2: criticized the New South Wales Office of the Director of
Speaker 2: Public Prosecutions from running these so called meritless rape cases,
Speaker 2: and those judges have criticized them. I've spoken to defendants,
Speaker 2: so men who believe that they were wrongfully accused. I've
Speaker 2: spoken and interviewed them. I've spoken to solicitors I've spoken
Speaker 2: to barristers, but this is the first time that we
Speaker 2: heard from a complainant. And I think what this story
Speaker 2: does is that it sheds a light on the fact
Speaker 2: that there is a woman most of the time, a
Speaker 2: woman at the center of these cases who has been
Speaker 2: given false hope, is believing that she's going to get justice,
Speaker 2: is dragged through the criminal trial system, is giving evidence,
Speaker 2: in this instance, giving evidence in the same building that
Speaker 2: her alleged believed perpetrator was.
Speaker 1: In and getting rigorously cross examined, no doubt by his counsel,
Speaker 1: which of course is the way it goes.
Speaker 2: Absolutely being put to her that she aggressively initiated oral
Speaker 2: sex with the man that she believes raped, only to
Speaker 2: then come out the other end and say, well, it
Speaker 2: was all for nothing and never should have gone to trial.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible story.
Speaker 2: It's an excruciating experience. I'm not certain. I don't think
Speaker 2: it was ever put to me that I was just
Speaker 2: lying because of my lack of memory. It was put
Speaker 2: to me that I'd been mistaken, that I'd engaged in
Speaker 2: a consensual interaction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really really tough. Well done on winning her trust.
Speaker 1: Of course, you anonymized her identity, but it's still a
Speaker 1: lot to tell this story at all. She didn't have
Speaker 1: to do that. What do you think made her want
Speaker 1: to talk Frustration?
Speaker 2: Probably she I think was frustrated by the fact that
Speaker 2: there would be people in the community who would perceive
Speaker 2: the Prosecution Office of being brave for running sexual assault
Speaker 2: trials that may not have enough evidence but might get there.
Speaker 2: Who knows. She says, it's not brave. It's been cavalier,
Speaker 2: and it's been cavalier with her hopes. It's been cavalier
Speaker 2: with public resources, but it's been cavalier with the justice system,
Speaker 2: which is something that we hold as such a central
Speaker 2: tenet of our society. The narrative has become far too
Speaker 2: simplistic that it's about being misunderstood, or that the DPP
Speaker 2: is being brave in some way by taking matters to
Speaker 2: trial that should not go to trial. That is not bravery.
Speaker 2: That is a squandering of public resources and just being
Speaker 2: cavalier with people's hopes. If I had my time over,
Speaker 2: I would make a sexual assault Reporting Option report, which
Speaker 2: is the anonymous online report. I would not participate in
Speaker 2: a prosecution.
Speaker 1: Do you think the DPP in New South Wales has
Speaker 1: changed its ways as a result of this controversy.
Speaker 2: Well, the other interesting thing about Tina's case is that
Speaker 2: it was her case that sparked a statewide audit of
Speaker 2: sexual assault cases. So the ODPP did an internal audit
Speaker 2: they run it themselves, where they looked at four hundred
Speaker 2: or so sexual assault cases that were currently before the
Speaker 2: courts to see if they had prospects of success. I
Speaker 2: think there was a dozen or so that were thrown
Speaker 2: out as a result of that audit. And we should
Speaker 2: say that the Office and its director, Sally Dowling, have
Speaker 2: always maintained that this isn't an issue, this isn't a thing,
Speaker 2: and they have taken two judges, including the one in
Speaker 2: Tina Stalman's case, to the Judicial Commission and have had
Speaker 2: wins in the Judicial Commission for saying that the criticism
Speaker 2: of the judges for claiming that these cases were meritless
Speaker 2: were baseless. But what I not through my reporting is
Speaker 2: that I've spoken to a lot of people who have
Speaker 2: been impacted by these cases and they've had their lives
Speaker 2: really changed by some of these prosecutions.
Speaker 1: Ellie Dudley, thank you very much. Thank you, Ellie Dudley
Speaker 1: is The Australian's National Chief of Staff. The names of
Speaker 1: the complainant and the accused in this story have been changed.
Speaker 1: You can read Ellie's work and all our average of
Speaker 1: courts and legal affairs right now at the Australian dot
Speaker 1: com dot au