Speaker 1: It's October twenty nineteen, and Sarah has just been on
Speaker 1: a date with her new love interest, Joshua. They ate
Speaker 1: and laughed their way around Sydney's noodle markets, and now.
Speaker 2: They're back at his place.
Speaker 1: Their relationship has already become sexually intimate, but tonight Sarah
Speaker 1: isn't feeling well. I don't want to have sex tonight,
Speaker 1: she tells him. It has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 1: She assures, good to know you're disgusted by me. He replies,
Speaker 1: and before she can even comprehend his retort, Sarah remembers
Speaker 1: being flipped on her back. She describes him proceeding to
Speaker 1: violently rape her. She remembers saying no multiple times, screaming, kicking,
Speaker 1: but it just made it worse, so she went limp
Speaker 1: waited for it to be over. I'm having a shower,
Speaker 1: he announces afterwards. Sarah's head is spinning.
Speaker 2: She's numb in shock, terrified.
Speaker 1: As he exits the room and turns on the water,
Speaker 1: Sarah runs, I'm Jemma Bath and you're listening to True
Speaker 1: Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes
Speaker 1: by speaking to the people who know.
Speaker 2: The most about them. Picture this.
Speaker 1: You've accused someone of rape, of strangling you, suffocating you,
Speaker 1: of leaving you with nightmares and PTSD. You've plucked up
Speaker 1: the courage to go to the police and report it.
Speaker 1: He can surround himself with the best lawyers money can buy.
Speaker 1: He can have those lawyers dig into the deepest, darkest,
Speaker 1: and most private parts of your life, like your conversations
Speaker 1: with your therapist, and have them read out in a
Speaker 1: court of law. He can spend the years leading up
Speaker 1: to the trial strategizing and preparing. He doesn't have to
Speaker 1: even take the stand and answer questions as is. He's right, You,
Speaker 1: the alleged victim, have no one because the prosecution doesn't
Speaker 1: work for you.
Speaker 2: They work for the state.
Speaker 1: You are simply evidence in your own case. You spend
Speaker 1: those years isolated and desperate for any basic information about
Speaker 1: what's happening. You meet the prosecutor assigned one day before
Speaker 1: trial for an hour. You walk into court and are
Speaker 1: expected to answer every and all questions put to you
Speaker 1: in days long interrogation processes.
Speaker 2: This was Sarah's reality.
Speaker 1: And she is not the exception.
Speaker 2: She is the rule. This is how we.
Speaker 1: Currently treat victims of sexual assault in Australia, and after
Speaker 1: navigating the system in New South Wales herself, Sarah Rosenberg
Speaker 1: has spent the last four years advocating to change it.
Speaker 1: She knows that's an uphill battle, so in the meantime
Speaker 1: she's created resources to help victims navigate the system. As
Speaker 1: a stands, it's called with You we Can. Just a note,
Speaker 1: Joshua is not his name. It's a pseudonym used to
Speaker 1: allow Sarah to talk more openly about her case because
Speaker 1: he was found not guilty by a jury. Sarah joins
Speaker 1: us now to talk about it all. Sarah, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on True Crime Conversations. Take me back
Speaker 1: to twenty three year old you. It was twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: What were you doing in life? Where were you at
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen? I had just come home from university in Canberra.
Speaker 1: So I wrapped up in twenty eighteen and I moved
Speaker 1: home and I was excited. I started an internship at
Speaker 1: the Smith Family, like the children's education charity. I ended
Speaker 1: up getting my getting my own job funded there and
Speaker 1: went on to work there for a while. But I
Speaker 1: remember around the time this all happening, there's literally a
Speaker 1: photo of me heading into my first day of work
Speaker 1: with like the lanyard around my neck on the bus
Speaker 1: sending it to this guy, which is what we're.
Speaker 2: Here to talk about. But I was very excited to
Speaker 2: be back in Sydney after being away. I was also
Speaker 2: nervous because I have a chronic autoimmune disease that really
Speaker 2: affects my day to day and certainly back then affected
Speaker 2: it a lot more. So I was nervous about starting work.
Speaker 2: But it was a new and exciting time for me,
Speaker 2: like it was new chapter vibes.
Speaker 1: You met Joshua on a dating app, as we all
Speaker 1: do nowadays, Tell.
Speaker 2: Me about the start. What was he like? What drew
Speaker 2: you to him? So we met him bumble and it
Speaker 2: just went so quickly, And it went so quickly, and
Speaker 2: things like love bombing weren't phrases back then, Like I
Speaker 2: feel like things have changed a lot. I was just
Speaker 2: like head over heels for this guy. He on paper,
Speaker 2: he sounded amazing like he was headboyd is school. He
Speaker 2: just like all of the things that you would obviously
Speaker 2: seek in someone who seems passionate and active and driven
Speaker 2: and stable and has their life together. Yeah, And it
Speaker 2: is funny because when I'm answering these questions to you,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to put myself back to how I felt
Speaker 2: and what I saw at the time. Well, so much
Speaker 2: has happened since It's tricky. It is tricky, but it
Speaker 2: is like, as we get into this, like it is
Speaker 2: worth noting that while I'm saying these things. While I'm
Speaker 2: saying that, like I was head over heels and I
Speaker 2: was being swept off my feet, and I was really
Speaker 2: into him, and I was really excited to have someone
Speaker 2: so interested in me. It felt like my first kind
Speaker 2: of adult relationship. Like back home after UNI, everyone has
Speaker 2: their jobs and lives in separate houses and you actually
Speaker 2: have to like make time to see each other. So
Speaker 2: it felt really adult, which was exciting. But as I'm speaking,
Speaker 2: I think it's important to note that even back then,
Speaker 2: while intellectually I was so excited and I was drawn
Speaker 2: to him and I felt like he seemed stable physically
Speaker 2: and somatically, I absolutely did not feel that way very early,
Speaker 2: very early on, I was fearful of him. I there
Speaker 2: was a night I even locked myself in my parents'
Speaker 2: room when he was staying over out of nowhere, like
Speaker 2: I was just what spoked, I don't know, it's weird.
Speaker 2: It's weird. It's like because I was having such cognitive
Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance. It's something I talk about a lot, Like,
Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance is crazy, and we need cognitive dissonance to
Speaker 2: go about our daily lives and like function because the
Speaker 2: world has and if we deal with that every day,
Speaker 2: none of us are going to get up and get
Speaker 2: out of bed. I was in a state of I
Speaker 2: guess I'm kind of I never thought that I would
Speaker 2: be a victim of domestic violence or a victim of
Speaker 2: anything really, but I look back and I'm like, I
Speaker 2: was so the perfect person to pray on. I was
Speaker 2: really vulnerable. I'm really close to my family because I've
Speaker 2: been really sick as well, so I'm extra close to
Speaker 2: them at a time that in your life is formative
Speaker 2: because you're meant to be like becoming an adult and individualizing.
Speaker 2: And I was like at home on my deathbed. My
Speaker 2: parents were abroad at the time. I had had i'd
Speaker 2: sort of like cut ties with a lot of people
Speaker 2: from university, and I was back, you know, in my hometown,
Speaker 2: but you know, totally different group of people. Things have
Speaker 2: changed after four years of UNI, and I just quite
Speaker 2: honestly remember thinking that I just wanted to stay still.
Speaker 2: I didn't care who, I didn't care what it was.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want any more kind of drama, anything
Speaker 2: that could impact my health. I'm someone that's sort of
Speaker 2: like I'm an EmPATH, Like I'm someone that takes on
Speaker 2: other people's stuff and really gets invested in a lot
Speaker 2: of things when it's you know that old kind of
Speaker 2: picky Battle's saying, I just remember, like I want to
Speaker 2: stay still. And all this guy did was stay still
Speaker 2: long enough for me to like sync up with him.
Speaker 2: And actually all of the things that I'm going, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm just being swept off my feet and we're so
Speaker 2: into each other were not real. He was mimicking like
Speaker 2: my behaviors, mimicking my interests, like all those like classic
Speaker 2: narcissistic traits that are associated with love bombing for real,
Speaker 2: not love bombing as a catchphrase, but love bombing as
Speaker 2: a tactic of control. And so there were two weeks
Speaker 2: of just this pure bliss. And he told me he
Speaker 2: loved me within those two weeks, and he proposed to me,
Speaker 2: and he moved houses to be around the corner from me,
Speaker 2: and all of these things, right, which and you now
Speaker 2: you go on, my god crazy. And it's funny because
Speaker 2: at the time, intellectually I was like, no, no, no, it's fine,
Speaker 2: it's fine. Somatically, I immediately like, I did not say
Speaker 2: I love him back. I was like, that's insane, and
Speaker 2: I intentionally didn't tell the people around me none of
Speaker 2: my friends had met him. Every time we would go out,
Speaker 2: he would he had a strange sort of I don't
Speaker 2: know if it was a relationship with alcohol or if
Speaker 2: it was just because his walls were coming down because
Speaker 2: he was inebriated. Every time he would drink, he would
Speaker 2: drink like too much for what the occasion warranted, and
Speaker 2: he would become hyper hyper fixated and jealous on me
Speaker 2: with whoever like was around, like him and his friend
Speaker 2: you belong together. He would throw tadrums. He would lie
Speaker 2: on the ground in the middle of the road. You
Speaker 2: just met this guy, and I just met this guy.
Speaker 2: And so while I say that, intellectually, I was going,
Speaker 2: I'm a god amazing, somatically I knew the whole time
Speaker 2: I just was. I think I was intentionally suppressing my
Speaker 2: understanding that this guy was not a whether he was
Speaker 2: good or bad. Different story but him being stable and safe.
Speaker 2: That was totally a lie. I was telling myself. I
Speaker 2: was fearful of him from the start. Yeah, his eyes
Speaker 2: in particular, like you'll later like my statement talks a
Speaker 2: lot about his eyes, his red eyes whenever he was drinking. Like,
Speaker 2: I was scared of this guy, and I was just
Speaker 2: not telling anyone about it because I was going, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I'm in an adult relationship. This could be
Speaker 2: it for me. Wouldn't that be nice to not have
Speaker 2: to ever like go on a dating app again? Or like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it was a vulnerable time in my
Speaker 2: life where I think I just wanted to stay still.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if anyone can relate to that.
Speaker 2: It was just sort of like I guess it was
Speaker 2: a feeling of settling.
Speaker 1: Really, let's go to the night. Yeah, you went on
Speaker 1: a date Sydney Noodle market, noodle markets good? How did
Speaker 1: the start of the night go? Were you in sync?
Speaker 1: Were you having a good time.
Speaker 2: So I'd just come back from a trip with my
Speaker 2: family or the girls in the family from Byron Bay,
Speaker 2: and during that trip I got really sick, and by
Speaker 2: really sick, that just looks like a flare up of
Speaker 2: my autoimmune disease. It wasn't like I had a flu
Speaker 2: or anything. I was just physically not thriving, probably because
Speaker 2: the flight had taken me out, so coming home, I
Speaker 2: was not in a good way. And he had never
Speaker 2: seen me that unwell before, so I was nervous. I
Speaker 2: was excited to be spending time together again, but I
Speaker 2: could tell that something was off, and me doing that
Speaker 2: thing that a lot of women do, I think, kind
Speaker 2: of bent over backwards to explain away what was going
Speaker 2: on or to like I literally gave him a speech
Speaker 2: about I felt like I got on my soapbox, like
Speaker 2: I know you haven't seen me this sick before. Just
Speaker 2: want you to let you know that, Like it's okay,
Speaker 2: it's nothing to do with you. I almost feel like
Speaker 2: he was taking it personally, but I mean for tax purposes.
Speaker 2: The night. The night was fine, like we had noodles,
Speaker 2: like it was nice. He had a couple of glasses
Speaker 2: of wine. I think I had one, he had a
Speaker 2: couple more. I can't really stomach wine at the best
Speaker 2: of times, but also especially not what I'm feeling sick.
Speaker 2: But it started out as a very normal evening.
Speaker 1: You went back to his house and once again. You
Speaker 1: told him you felt sick. Yeah, you had already been
Speaker 1: sexually intimate before. Yeah, but you said I'm not feeling
Speaker 1: it tonight. It wasn't like I'm not feeling it because
Speaker 1: he was trying to initiate intimacy. It was like he
Speaker 1: was being weird and I felt the need to get
Speaker 1: on my soapbox. And I turned to him and I said,
Speaker 1: my skin hurts right now, like I don't want to
Speaker 1: be touched. That has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 2: My nerves are tingling. This is because I'm inflamed. I
Speaker 2: feel like you are mad at me, like what's going on?
Speaker 2: And this is when it happened. He he turned to
Speaker 2: me and he said, good to know that you're disgusted
Speaker 2: by me, And then he turned the light off, and
Speaker 2: then it happened. So it wasn't like we were like
Speaker 2: in a process of hey, should we should we sleep together?
Speaker 2: Should we not? It was like not even in the
Speaker 2: kind of the realm of the conversation at all. It
Speaker 2: wasn't like something we did every night. Certainly, it wasn't assumed.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a coercive Oh come on please. It was
Speaker 2: like not even no discussion, really not even we weren't
Speaker 2: even talking about it. So I was just kind of
Speaker 2: shocked by what he had said and felt so upset
Speaker 2: by that after I've been so vulnerable and I'm trying
Speaker 2: to make him feel better, which is crazy in the
Speaker 2: first place, that I'm trying to make you feel better
Speaker 2: that I feel sick, and you seem to be taking
Speaker 2: it personally like I don't even know what that means
Speaker 2: or what that says about a person. But it was
Speaker 2: so sudden. It happened straight away, and it escalated very quickly.
Speaker 1: As much as you feel comfortable sharing, what do you
Speaker 1: remember about what happened next?
Speaker 2: I remember his neck and his face pushed into pushed
Speaker 2: into me, and I remember the things he was saying,
Speaker 2: because once again there were really strange things he was saying.
Speaker 2: I knew you never loved me. I knew you were
Speaker 2: always thinking about other men in this like low insidious
Speaker 2: voice that I did not recognize, and I started like
Speaker 2: pulling his hair and pushing his body, and I was
Speaker 2: really pinned down. And this is like the he was
Speaker 2: inside of me at this point, like the rape had started.
Speaker 2: But I in that moment was I think about how
Speaker 2: later on and you talk about trauma responses, and people
Speaker 2: are like, it's okay that you did this or did that,
Speaker 2: and it's like, I bought my little legs off. I
Speaker 2: was pulling his hair. It wasn't working. I was screaming
Speaker 2: in his ear. It wasn't working. I started kicking my legs.
Speaker 2: It wasn't working. And then he strangled me. And he
Speaker 2: strangled me with both hands and sitting up on his
Speaker 2: knees with the full force of his body. I still
Speaker 2: I was fighting, I was scratching. I was pulling. Got
Speaker 2: no bloody nails. I picked them off. I was pulling,
Speaker 2: and then he let go and I gasped for air,
Speaker 2: and then very quickly I was suffocated with a pillow
Speaker 2: that he had grabbed from next to my head, and
Speaker 2: he sort of smoothed his hands across my face and
Speaker 2: pressed down, so I was really stuck under there. During
Speaker 2: that time, it's believed that I lost consciousness. I remember
Speaker 2: focusing on the lights and the patterns that I was
Speaker 2: seeing because there was a lot of pressure being placed
Speaker 2: on my eyes and I couldn't breathe. And when the
Speaker 2: pillow did eventually get removed, I made a very intentional
Speaker 2: decision to go limp. So that's where the freezing kicked
Speaker 2: in for me, because I had tried fighting and it
Speaker 2: had made it worse. I'd just been strangled and suffocated,
Speaker 2: so I went it kept going. There's like a second
Speaker 2: round of rate because he flipped me over. He grabbed
Speaker 2: my hair and pulled me up by my hair until
Speaker 2: I was on all fours. He when he was done,
Speaker 2: he let go, and I just collapsed onto the bed,
Speaker 2: like no part of me was holding myself up by
Speaker 2: that stage, like I was just limp and I was numb,
Speaker 2: and I curled into a ball, and I got my
Speaker 2: legs ready in case he came back. But all that
Speaker 2: happened was he grabbed my towel from the back of
Speaker 2: the door and threw it at me and said I'm
Speaker 2: going to take a shower, and maybe assuming that I
Speaker 2: would join, And it felt like I was lying there forever.
Speaker 2: I remember touching my face and noticing that I'd been crying.
Speaker 2: I didn't know. And then something clicked and I grabbed
Speaker 2: everything of mine in the room and bolted. He must
Speaker 2: have heard me, I mean, like it's an old terrace house.
Speaker 2: He must have heard the padding on the stairs, and
Speaker 2: he chased me and got to the door. At the
Speaker 2: same time as me, I put my hand on the
Speaker 2: door handle. He put his hand on the door to
Speaker 2: stop it. And then came the immediate like I know
Speaker 2: now that this was bullshit, this immediate justification. I'm a monster.
Speaker 2: I belong in jail. People that even think of doing
Speaker 2: that belong in jail. I don't know what's happened to me.
Speaker 2: Something's wrong with me. I've had a brain snap all
Speaker 2: of this stuff, and I remember it so well. I
Speaker 2: looked up and I looked at him, and I realized
Speaker 2: that was the first time we had made eye contact
Speaker 2: since he had said he was disgusted by me and
Speaker 2: then very violently assaulted me. Like I hadn't looked at
Speaker 2: him the entire time. I couldn't get his eyes to
Speaker 2: look at me. I looked him in the eyes, and
Speaker 2: I just opened the door and let me and I
Speaker 2: went to my car, which was parked across the road.
Speaker 1: That is so heavy. Thank you for telling us that
Speaker 1: I've heard you well. I read in your article with
Speaker 1: Nina Fanel, who we've had on this podcast. She's an
Speaker 1: advocate of a lot of violence being one of the things,
Speaker 1: and she has told your story, and a quote in
Speaker 1: there from you I saw was that you feel like
Speaker 1: you want to tell the details of exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: Why why do you like to tell people? There are
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons behind it, and a lot of
Speaker 2: them are you know. It's the same reason that I
Speaker 2: staunchly identify as a victim and not a survivor, because
Speaker 2: the story of resilience is a lot more marketable, and
Speaker 2: with the details of my story, I think we so
Speaker 2: often hear, which is incredibly important. We so often hear
Speaker 2: about sexual coercion and how it goes so unnoticed in
Speaker 2: intimate partner relationships. But this wasn't that There are people
Speaker 2: who do intend to rape and who do use it
Speaker 2: as a tool of control, and who who don't do
Speaker 2: this just because they haven't learnt better. And I think
Speaker 2: people often hear rape and they automatically tune out because
Speaker 2: it's a woman's issue. But a story of violence is believable,
Speaker 2: and I just think it's a way to keep people engaged.
Speaker 2: I mean, people love the gory details clickbait as much
Speaker 2: as anything, but I don't want to water anything down
Speaker 2: to make other people uncomfortable. And I also know that
Speaker 2: physical aggression has taken more seriously than sexual violence, and
Speaker 2: so it's as much a to keep people reading than anything.
Speaker 2: It's a lot for you to carry though, having to
Speaker 2: think that while telling your story. I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: lot for all of the whole world's a lot to
Speaker 2: carry for anyone.
Speaker 1: So up next, Sarah reveals the first message she received
Speaker 1: from Joshua after leaving his house that night. Once you'd left,
Speaker 1: he started texting you, didn't he Yeah, yeah, what We're
Speaker 1: in those messages.
Speaker 2: He was checking that I was okay. He kept apologizing.
Speaker 2: He wanted to know that I'd gotten home safe. He
Speaker 2: didn't know that I had not gotten home safe. I
Speaker 2: had not moved and was sitting in the car he
Speaker 2: was still out there. Yeah. I remember looking like in
Speaker 2: my there are all these moments of like seeing myself,
Speaker 2: like looking in the car mirror and like you just,
Speaker 2: oh God, this can't be happening. I my first instinct was, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've got to go to the hospital get a rape kit.
Speaker 2: And then immediately, great, kid, what that didn't happen. That
Speaker 2: can't have happened to me. And then it was like, okay,
Speaker 2: obviously I'll just go home. And then I was like, no,
Speaker 2: my parents. I don't want to worry my parents. They'll
Speaker 2: be so worried, like they're so happy for me, and
Speaker 2: oh like I just immediately started belittling my experience and
Speaker 2: justifying his behavior. And I lay back in the car.
Speaker 2: I put the seat back and I put on like
Speaker 2: rain noises from that calm app shout out calm like
Speaker 2: the free rain noises. And I don't know how long
Speaker 2: I mean I do because it's in my statement, but
Speaker 2: for me, I don't know how much time passed, like
Speaker 2: it felt like once again an eternity, And then the
Speaker 2: phone started going and I didn't know what else to do.
Speaker 2: This is someone I thought loved me. I did not
Speaker 2: feel like what had happened could have possibly happened. I
Speaker 2: thought I must have been interpreting it wrong, like I'd
Speaker 2: got it all wrong. So I responded to his messages
Speaker 2: and he came out and he sat in the car
Speaker 2: with me. It is yep, and we just sat there
Speaker 2: listening to rain noises for a long time, just in silence.
Speaker 2: It very quickly became a situation where I was worried
Speaker 2: he would hurt himself because he was so ashamed of
Speaker 2: what he'd done, and I fell victim, and my whole
Speaker 2: family did. We fell victim to this narrative really quickly,
Speaker 2: and we said about trying to get him help. I
Speaker 2: don't know what kind of help. I know now that
Speaker 2: you know, people who have mental illness are more likely
Speaker 2: to be victims than perpetrators. So certainly that wasn't it.
Speaker 2: And it's a really common loophole that perpetrators actually abused
Speaker 2: to try and get out of court hearings and things.
Speaker 2: But he'd said he was worried he'd got into some
Speaker 2: kind of psychosis, and he started like talking about things
Speaker 2: that I don't know, sounded reasonable at the time, like
Speaker 2: he'd done drugs in the past and done some intense
Speaker 2: drugs that I hadn't known about and that was the
Speaker 2: old me, but you know, maybe something to do with that,
Speaker 2: Like he just it sounded reasonable. And I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not a big believer in the castle system. My mum
Speaker 2: used to be a lawyer and certainly wasn't a big
Speaker 2: believer either. We knew enough to know that it would
Speaker 2: be bad even for someone who was well, and I'm
Speaker 2: not a well person physically, and we knew it wouldn't
Speaker 2: bring about any good outcomes for him either. And so
Speaker 2: we sort of said about this process of like basically
Speaker 2: hosting interventions, like it sounds so silly now, it's like
Speaker 2: sounds like a stupid movie. We were like hosting interventions
Speaker 2: with his parents. There was like a joint psychiatric consultation,
Speaker 2: like we were like in hindsight, we were bargaining with him.
Speaker 2: He was bargaining I'll please, like I'll do anything for
Speaker 2: you not to report. And so I wanted him to
Speaker 2: stop working with children. I wanted him to get intervention
Speaker 2: that looked like and I wanted him to tell his
Speaker 2: friends and family the truth because I wanted him to
Speaker 2: be held accountable to his actions. But I wanted them
Speaker 2: to They had all said really nasty things and blocked
Speaker 2: me on social media, and you know, he would have said,
Speaker 2: like my crazy ex girlfriend or something, even though we
Speaker 2: hadn't broken up, and it was awful. It added to
Speaker 2: the trauma tenfold. So I wanted him to do these things,
Speaker 2: and it became very clear that he wasn't doing any
Speaker 2: of them, and we were being manipulated. And that's when
Speaker 2: I made the decision to go to the police. I
Speaker 2: felt like I had no choice. I tried to do
Speaker 2: everything I could to not report actually, which is kind
Speaker 2: of funny because it's come a very long way since then.
Speaker 2: What did reporting look like for you? How did that
Speaker 2: process go? God? Every time I zoom into one part
Speaker 2: of the process, it's like, in and of itself, this
Speaker 2: could be enough to to stabilize someone. Step one, step one, God.
Speaker 2: I it took three police It took three police stations
Speaker 2: and five officers to finalize a statement. It would take
Speaker 2: twenty four hours over three months, COVID was closing in
Speaker 2: and New South Wales police didn't have zoom. It felt
Speaker 2: like an uphill battle from the start. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: just because I was retelling my story over and over.
Speaker 2: It was because every part of the process takes away
Speaker 2: your agency, just like it was taken during the assault,
Speaker 2: right at a time that I was trying to reclaim
Speaker 2: it by doing something about it. It's like the kinds
Speaker 2: of heads ups that you think were common decency just
Speaker 2: went out the window. And I mean like a lot
Speaker 2: of the officers were victims of the system as well.
Speaker 2: They're working out of rooms that look like jail cells
Speaker 2: with no windows. They're overburdened. I remember feeling a lot
Speaker 2: of lack compassion for them. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: I had to be escorted to go to the bathroom
Speaker 2: at the station and I felt like a criminal. And
Speaker 2: didn't you have one detective ask you to spell vagina?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I did. I did. Like there's no excuses there. It's like,
Speaker 2: just don't put someone, don't make a victim of sexual
Speaker 2: violence a guinea pig for a detective. She was new,
Speaker 2: like blessed her gotten sock, Like it makes me very bad.
Speaker 2: It was bad.
Speaker 1: Why were you bounced to three because you went to one?
Speaker 1: You told your story and they said, oh, no, sorry,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to go here. Yeah, and they didn't
Speaker 1: share your statements, like the people who were meant to
Speaker 1: have the answers don't even have the answers. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, judy officers are the least experienced in
Speaker 1: a station, Like the person who answers the phone is
Speaker 1: the least likely to know how to help you. And
Speaker 1: that is so stupid, Like it's not their fault, but
Speaker 1: it's so stupid. But it's also sexual assault is something
Speaker 1: that is being reported every day. I know, at such
Speaker 1: extreme levels, you think they could sort of get there,
Speaker 1: git together a little better, Like it's so hard because
Speaker 1: and there are certainly like I'm lucky to have not
Speaker 1: experienced like discrimination and racism, and you know, I carry
Speaker 1: a lot of privilege, and there are offices that certainly
Speaker 1: have been drawn to the job I think because of
Speaker 1: the power they can then wield. I didn't really feel
Speaker 1: like for me, I felt like it was the result
Speaker 1: of a lack of legal literacy from the very people.
Speaker 2: Who were meant to be across that across it. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, I definitely feel like it wasn't it wasn't intentional.
Speaker 2: That kind of doesn't matter when the harm is that bad.
Speaker 2: Like a process doesn't have to be cruel to do harm.
Speaker 2: All it has to do is not senter the experiences
Speaker 2: of victim survivors and the experiences of women generally, Like
Speaker 2: the law does not reflect the reality of women's lives
Speaker 2: at all. So you found that reporting process cruel. It
Speaker 2: wasn't intentional. It didn't have to be cruel to do harm.
Speaker 2: It was cruel though it was laughable. It was humiliating,
Speaker 2: and it was drawn out, and it was you know
Speaker 2: everything you hear that it is, and it was hopeful,
Speaker 2: and it was kind, and there were officers who I
Speaker 2: adored merely for being competent and changed my world just
Speaker 2: by sending me a text before calling me from the
Speaker 2: unknown number that I had become so scared of, Like
Speaker 2: there is no one thing, There is no one person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And even at the time I was going through it,
Speaker 2: I felt that way. I felt really sorry for the officers.
Speaker 2: I felt really angry with the officers, but I felt
Speaker 2: sorry for them too, And that is not the experience
Speaker 2: of a lot of people who you know harm is
Speaker 2: done intentionally. But I just felt like this couldn't be
Speaker 2: There was an overwhelming feeling of this can't be working
Speaker 2: for you either, Like this isn't good for me, obviously,
Speaker 2: but how is this sufficient for you? Like you guys
Speaker 2: are doing a disservice to your own job by freezing
Speaker 2: when it comes to victims, Like I think they've been
Speaker 2: taught to handle us with care, so really basic common
Speaker 2: decency goes out the window. And obviously that's not okay.
Speaker 2: But I sort of think about all of the things
Speaker 2: that led to that point for an individual officer, like
Speaker 2: maybe they're not supported in the workplace to have compassion,
Speaker 2: they are overburdened, they know a lot of them know
Speaker 2: that the system is hopeless. That's not their job to
Speaker 2: make a decision about what a jury is or isn't
Speaker 2: going to think about you. That's called downstream decision making,
Speaker 2: and that is not up to them. But a lot
Speaker 2: of them probably think they're doing something useful by saving you.
Speaker 2: But the whole point is that this is about restoring agency.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't matter that it's not intentional. It matters
Speaker 2: that you're doing harm. Like this is about giving This
Speaker 2: should be about giving victim survivors information and choice, even
Speaker 2: in the tiniest, tiniest details of the process. And like, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe that feels stupid for them, so they ignore it
Speaker 2: in their training, or maybe they just don't realize how
Speaker 2: significant it is to offer a victim this room or
Speaker 2: that room. But at this point, with like the crime
Speaker 2: like being committed at this extent, knowing that we relying
Speaker 2: on victims to courageously speak up so that the state
Speaker 2: can do their job that they want to do and
Speaker 2: prosecute offenders, we can't keep going.
Speaker 1: The way we're going, asking too much of them totally.
Speaker 1: So Joshua was arrested and charged with six counts, including rape,
Speaker 1: intentional suffocation, and intentional choking.
Speaker 2: What was that? Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you? Was it long after you'd reported? What
Speaker 1: was that process where you kept in kind of did
Speaker 1: you know that he was going to be charged? Were
Speaker 1: you kept in kind of communication?
Speaker 2: So after I signed my statement, the last session of
Speaker 2: which in and of itself was four hours, and the
Speaker 2: first time I was told I could have a support
Speaker 2: person with me. Shout out to my friend Nick. After
Speaker 2: that the investigation began. It was three months, which is
Speaker 2: quite a quick turnaround for things like this. I collected
Speaker 2: a lot of evidence myself, like I really supported the process,
Speaker 2: and I've been asked whether I think the detectives would
Speaker 2: have been that rigorous. Some of them certainly, but some
Speaker 2: of them not. But either way, I shouldn't have been
Speaker 2: asked to do that. But it was three months until
Speaker 2: he was charged, and the detective in charge by that time,
Speaker 2: who I was really close to, she ended up coming
Speaker 2: to my twenty fifth birthday, which was spent waiting waiting
Speaker 2: for court. She made a decision to charge him and
Speaker 2: then call me because she knew how anxiety inducing it
Speaker 2: would have been. And so I was at family dinner
Speaker 2: and I got a call well, I got a text
Speaker 2: saying I'm going to call you, because she we had
Speaker 2: like a routine by then, and I answered the call
Speaker 2: and I started just walking away from the table and
Speaker 2: she told me they had him in custody and had
Speaker 2: charged him, and I like literally collapsed to the ground.
Speaker 2: I just like melted. I never expected to get that far.
Speaker 2: The whole time through the reporting process and the process
Speaker 2: of making a statement, I just kept saying to my parents,
Speaker 2: let's just keep going, Let's just see what evidence they collect,
Speaker 2: or let's just see if it goes any further, because
Speaker 2: no one wanted me to report, and I at the
Speaker 2: start didn't want to report. Somewhere along the way, I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I deserve a chance at justice,
Speaker 2: and I think this is the way to help potential
Speaker 2: future victims of him. You know, I've got to do something.
Speaker 2: I'm so well supported. I'll give it a go. But
Speaker 2: I never thought it would get as far as it did,
Speaker 2: and so hearing that was like wild to me. I
Speaker 2: remember the room just spinning and I asked really silly questions. Immediately,
Speaker 2: I said, is he have you given him a drink?
Speaker 2: Like Sarah, Yeah, it was really weird. She was like what.
Speaker 2: The detective was like, what are you talking about? And
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know, Like he liked gatorade.
Speaker 2: She's like what I was like, is there were like
Speaker 2: a chair and there like a table? Is it like
Speaker 2: a cell? Like how long has he been there? Did
Speaker 2: he say anything? He had rocked up with a lawyer,
Speaker 2: so he knew. And I found out in trial actually
Speaker 2: that he'd had a lawyer in the immediate aftermath, which
Speaker 2: was horrific to find out because me and my family
Speaker 2: were trying to help him during that stage. But he
Speaker 2: rocked up with a lawyer and you know, didn't say anything.
Speaker 2: And the detective when they have to read out, you know,
Speaker 2: the charge sheet and they also because it was intimate
Speaker 2: partner violence, they automatically have to put in place an
Speaker 2: ADVO in New South Wales, that's what it's called, and
Speaker 2: it has to be read out to him and it
Speaker 2: says really sternly, like you, like, violence is not a
Speaker 2: normal part of a relationship and like you are now
Speaker 2: in the minority of like this and that, and it's
Speaker 2: just really funny because it's it's not funny at all,
Speaker 2: but you've got to laugh otherwise you'll cry. But it's
Speaker 2: just brutal, and they read it to him and she
Speaker 2: the detective in charge, got a colleague, a guy who
Speaker 2: had been sort of quite interested in the case, to
Speaker 2: come in as well, who sort of off the record,
Speaker 2: was like, mate, I mean, obviously you haven't said anything
Speaker 2: to us yet, but her statement is twenty six pages
Speaker 2: like I really, I've really got to hope you never
Speaker 2: do this to anyone else. And so, I mean, that
Speaker 2: was comforting to hear. And we drove home from dinner
Speaker 2: past the police station to pick up Mike of the ADVO.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and then you waited three years to go
Speaker 2: to trial. Yeah, well two years and then that whole
Speaker 2: process just there had been about a year. Once a
Speaker 2: decision to prosecute is made, you are just in a
Speaker 2: Q yeah right, and my queue was two years long,
Speaker 2: and that's really short the people right now because of COVID,
Speaker 2: like the backlog. I'm one of the lucky ones, which
Speaker 2: is a crazy thing to say. Can you articulate though,
Speaker 2: what that weight is like? Because you still have to
Speaker 2: live in the knowledge of knowing that you then have
Speaker 2: to go to court and relive it all again. Those
Speaker 2: two years are the most difficult thing. I have ever experienced.
Speaker 2: It's hard to put words to. Oh, I've got like shivers,
Speaker 2: like now just thinking about it. You are completely suspended
Speaker 2: in limbo. Your life is on hold. You are a
Speaker 2: shell of yourself. You are entirely dissociated, and you were
Speaker 2: actively trying to keep the assault front of mind that
Speaker 2: whole time so that you can give clear testimony. It
Speaker 2: is crazy. I put off, really what would be life
Speaker 2: changing therapies because there's you just sneeze and the whole
Speaker 2: thing gets derailed. Meanwhile, he can literally do anything, but
Speaker 2: we just didn't want to do anything to derail the case.
Speaker 2: My whole family were witnesses. I couldn't speak to anyone
Speaker 2: about it. Yeah, it was the worst time in my life.
Speaker 2: I will never get those years back.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that a bit more, because I don't
Speaker 1: think people realize so, like, obviously you're really close to
Speaker 1: yourmum and dad. Yeah, you've got siblings, and you can't
Speaker 1: talk to your mom about what happened to you.
Speaker 2: It's like you kind of don't have words for it.
Speaker 2: It was we were such goody two shoes. My mom
Speaker 2: is like looking about going, what are we doing? She's like,
Speaker 2: mom and dad didn't even read each other's statements, all
Speaker 2: the things that you were following the book. We were
Speaker 2: so good. I was perfect. I was the perfect Like
Speaker 2: it was Oh my god, it was so bad. It
Speaker 2: was so bad. I don't think I slept for two years.
Speaker 2: I mean, the one thing I did have was that
Speaker 2: I was starting with you we Can, so that you
Speaker 2: started it during those two years. Yeah, by the time
Speaker 2: of the trial, with You we Can was a public,
Speaker 2: first of its kind resource, and I had in that
Speaker 2: time like educated myself about the system. I was so
Speaker 2: in the know about what tweek. I knew how many
Speaker 2: jury members would be and paneled like all these stupid
Speaker 2: things that no one tells you because they're kind of meaningless,
Speaker 2: but they mean everything to a victim. I was across it,
Speaker 2: like I was like ready, but I was in complete isolation.
Speaker 2: I had like turned nocturnal. My health was obviously at
Speaker 2: an all time low. Everyone was a danger to me.
Speaker 2: I was so scared of anyone who knew anyone who
Speaker 2: knew someone who might know him. And I was also
Speaker 2: contagious because reporting his social suicide. So I had people
Speaker 2: actively distance themselves from me, just as much as I
Speaker 2: distanced myself from everyone else because I don't know they
Speaker 2: wanted to go to his house party or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: you know, like it's there's so much internalized misogyny and
Speaker 2: justifying away and cognitive dissonance, and people don't want to
Speaker 2: believe the perpetrators of people that we know and love,
Speaker 2: and like I didn't want to believe that either, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to get him help, but I couldn't understand
Speaker 2: why his friends didn't also want to.
Speaker 1: Get him help. Tell us what with You we Can
Speaker 1: is so that people understand With You.
Speaker 2: We Can is a nationally accessible, free to use online
Speaker 2: legal education platform and advocacy organization. So we're a registered
Speaker 2: charity that works at a national level that aims to
Speaker 2: demystify the police and legal processes for victims of sexual
Speaker 2: violence and its alternatives very much while working to improve
Speaker 2: those processes. That kind of information is quite literally the
Speaker 2: bare minimum. I couldn't believe that something like with You
Speaker 2: we Can didn't exist, and I think that's why I
Speaker 2: had such immense support from the stakeholders that are involved,
Speaker 2: like cross sector contribution, academics, advocates, experts, frontline services, police
Speaker 2: as well. But the police who in put into the
Speaker 2: resource can't be named because it's a conflict of interest
Speaker 2: to look like you're helping victims of sexual violence. And
Speaker 2: if that doesn't demonstrate why we need with you, we
Speaker 2: can I don't know what does. The advocacy side of
Speaker 2: it is that it is important to me. But so
Speaker 2: I was going through the system when the consent laws
Speaker 2: in New South Wales changed yep, and I was over
Speaker 2: the moon and I was so excited and I just
Speaker 2: felt like I owed my life to Saxon Mullens. And
Speaker 2: then at the same time I was devastated because they
Speaker 2: didn't apply to me, because the law can't be applied retrospectively.
Speaker 2: So there are people right now like, yes, we're working
Speaker 2: on law reform. Things are changing slowly, painfully, but they're changing.
Speaker 2: But that's irrelevant to someone right now who was going
Speaker 2: through a system blindly, who was doing it to the
Speaker 2: shrill sound of people claiming they've lied, who has no
Speaker 2: idea about the legal decisions being made about them without them,
Speaker 2: who was waiting for an unknown number to call just
Speaker 2: for a tid bit of information about a case that
Speaker 2: supposedly revolves around them, Like there are people right now
Speaker 2: who need help, So that resource in and of itself,
Speaker 2: I feel will always need to exist no matter what
Speaker 2: law reform advocacy I turned to. But it sounds like
Speaker 2: you were creating this resource knowing that what you'd experienced
Speaker 2: wasn't okay, and you weren't even at trial yet.
Speaker 1: Could you have foreseen traumatizing the trial could have been
Speaker 1: given that you've done all the research. Could you have
Speaker 1: foreseen what was going to happen? I entered the system
Speaker 1: with eyes wide open. It was worse than I possibly
Speaker 1: could have imagined. It was the stuff of nightmares. It
Speaker 1: is the stuff of my nightmares. But it's like, you
Speaker 1: go out into the real world and it is so
Speaker 1: incredibly destabilizing to have your eyes open and to experience
Speaker 1: things that you go, oh, that doesn't happen, That doesn't
Speaker 1: happen to me, Like oh, someone's made a misogynistic comment.
Speaker 2: That doesn't happen to me. Like you grow up and
Speaker 2: you're just like, oh my god. It doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: educated I am and how much I know that you know,
Speaker 2: women have fought to get here and all the history
Speaker 2: of things as they are, it doesn't matter. Those things
Speaker 2: still happen, and it is so destabilizing when it does.
Speaker 2: I mean, no one knew what to do. When I
Speaker 2: was assaulted. I was just like, ah, there is no
Speaker 2: way that I get assaulted. That's not what happens to me.
Speaker 2: Victims of domestic violence are women with children, who are
Speaker 2: in like long term relationships like I just it doesn't abuse.
Speaker 2: It does discriminate when it finds you, and I did
Speaker 2: not know that.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the trial, I want you to
Speaker 1: tell me about the phone call you got from your
Speaker 1: doctor that you hadn't seen, that you hadn't seen for many,
Speaker 1: many years.
Speaker 2: I got a phone call from a doctor I hadn't
Speaker 2: seen in years, asking me what she should do because
Speaker 2: my medical records had been subpoenaed, as if I knew
Speaker 2: what the fuck to do. And there's also like a
Speaker 2: level there of we're told to trust people in white coats,
Speaker 2: So it was really confusing to have an authority figure
Speaker 2: asked me what to do. I have a chronic autoimmune disease,
Speaker 2: and I knew that would be used against me. It
Speaker 2: was very relevant to the assault itself, as we've spoken about,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know in what way. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what that would look like, but I knew it would
Speaker 2: come up somehow that the defense would want to make
Speaker 2: an argument about me being unwell. For me, I felt that,
Speaker 2: you know, any evidence of my illness just shows how
Speaker 2: vulnerable and weak physically I was. So I didn't understand.
Speaker 2: I couldn't foresee the ways it would be twisted to
Speaker 2: discredit me, and the ways that happens all the time.
Speaker 2: That is completely the norm for complainants. But I received
Speaker 2: this phone call after two years of begging the prosecution
Speaker 2: to get on top of my illness, like again, whatever
Speaker 2: that looked like. It turns out there's a scheme in
Speaker 2: New South Wales that sits with Legal Aid called the
Speaker 2: Sexual Assault Communications Privileged Scheme, where complainants get an independent
Speaker 2: lawyer to represent them and challenge access attempts to their
Speaker 2: medical and counseling histories. It was too late, they'd all
Speaker 2: been accessed outside of due process, and even though it's
Speaker 2: outside of due process, the defense can just claim that, oh,
Speaker 2: we didn't know. It's a very niche part of the law,
Speaker 2: even though it's the most common thing that is done
Speaker 2: by defense barristers. I love it. After all these years,
Speaker 2: the best we still have is that she's crazy because
Speaker 2: she went to therapy, so I was really I was
Speaker 2: distraught because of how frustrating it was. So then when
Speaker 2: I did get flicked to that legal aid scheme too late,
Speaker 2: it was like I was a nuisance and the lawyer
Speaker 2: had to learn my name so quickly. And it got
Speaker 2: to the stage, It got to the stage where we
Speaker 2: had to choose between allowing my privacy to be invaded.
Speaker 2: Keeping in mind it kind of already had been because
Speaker 2: they'd accessed the documents, but at least they could say,
Speaker 2: let's not question her on the documents. At least they
Speaker 2: could challenge that aspect of it. It got to the
Speaker 2: point where we had to choose between invading my privacy
Speaker 2: like sanctioning that or delaying the trial. And my mum
Speaker 2: had to intervene. I had to give her legal authority
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, and she spoke to the lawyer
Speaker 2: and just said stand down, like, do not appeal again,
Speaker 2: do not object to their objection. You will not have
Speaker 2: a witness if this trial is delayed anymore, obviously referring
Speaker 2: to my mental health.
Speaker 1: By then, let's set up what that room looks like
Speaker 1: the trial room. Because I don't think people are aware
Speaker 1: he can have any defense team he wants he can
Speaker 1: hire as many people as he needs. He has those
Speaker 1: years to strategize and prepare.
Speaker 2: Who do you have in them? Literal years? Literal years.
Speaker 2: He's flanked by the highest paid QC in the country,
Speaker 2: Like he had two lawyers as well, plus their junior
Speaker 2: There's like usually like there's usually a like barristers and
Speaker 2: then they're you know, like in the movies, the people
Speaker 2: behind doing the groundwork, and the same with the crown.
Speaker 2: There's a junior solicitor on the prosecuting team. He is
Speaker 2: flanked by the best lawyers money can buy. He is prepared.
Speaker 2: He has been taught when to look at the jury,
Speaker 2: when to look bashful, when to look remorseful. He's been
Speaker 2: taught to bow so low that he woos the judge.
Speaker 2: I walked into that courtroom alone. I met the prosecutor
Speaker 2: one working day before trial. They got handed the brief
Speaker 2: of evidence one working day before trial. There is no
Speaker 2: way that they could be across a case enough to
Speaker 2: prosecute it in that little time. You're allowed a support person.
Speaker 2: My godmother came and she could sit at the back
Speaker 2: of the courtroom in silence and watch on in horror,
Speaker 2: like there is nothing she can do because she can't speak.
Speaker 2: It is, you know, I was pushed through those courtroom
Speaker 2: doors and they slam shut behind you, and you are
Speaker 2: literally like you're sitting duck. It is because the prosecutor
Speaker 2: isn't actually your lawyer, right, No, they work for the
Speaker 2: state they represent, so there's no representation for you, correct,
Speaker 2: So no one to intervene, no one to say you
Speaker 2: can't say that. Yeah, it is. The power and balance
Speaker 2: is pretty staggering. Most victims, unfortunately, are also learning for
Speaker 2: the first time at trial that they are unrepresented. Like
Speaker 2: I think we think that you know, the supportive prosecuting team,
Speaker 2: like that's your team of lawyers. No, they have nothing
Speaker 2: to do with you. They learned your name yesterday, and
Speaker 2: you're not in their interest, is how it's framed. We
Speaker 2: talk a lot about interests and interested parties, and you
Speaker 2: are just a witness to a case that firstly would
Speaker 2: not exist without you, but also quite literally happened like
Speaker 2: like to you, so physically like the way you are
Speaker 2: the physical embodiment of that crime. To be treated as
Speaker 2: just a prop rather than a valued participant is crazily
Speaker 2: objectifying and kind of mirrors the objectifying kind of misogynistic
Speaker 2: way that sexual assault unfolds as well. So I mean,
Speaker 2: start to finish through and through every which angle you
Speaker 2: look at it. The system is not designed to support
Speaker 2: the person it's meant to protect. You've a cross examined
Speaker 2: for days?
Speaker 1: What was that? Like?
Speaker 2: What did they ask you about? I think I think
Speaker 2: Nina's done a like analysis. I think I was asked
Speaker 2: like two thousand questions or something. I had four and
Speaker 2: a half days of cross examination with only about an
Speaker 2: hour or so of evidence in chief, like, how can
Speaker 2: you examine me for that long after I've given that
Speaker 2: little evidence? And there was no break in between the
Speaker 2: two as well, which was like horrific. So going through trial,
Speaker 2: I mean I'd been told to not try and win
Speaker 2: the trial with every response like don't try and you know,
Speaker 2: just answer questions clearly, don't bring up something else, don't
Speaker 2: try and fit in bits and bobs and as if
Speaker 2: you even have time to think rationally about that when
Speaker 2: you're being like annihilated in front of a room full
Speaker 2: of people. But I still, like it was awful, But
Speaker 2: I still, you know, was comforted by the fact that
Speaker 2: the prosecution had said that they were going to go
Speaker 2: forward with or without me, which is very very rare.
Speaker 2: All of that time spent trying to get him help
Speaker 2: had led to a huge amount of supporting evidence. I
Speaker 2: never really felt like the evidence sat with me. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously it does, and technically you are the evidence in chief,
Speaker 2: but there were just there was a long list of witnesses,
Speaker 2: and I could take comfort in that at least, But
Speaker 2: I mean, it was awful. My parents were just sitting outside.
Speaker 2: There was no room for them. His whole family had
Speaker 2: a private room. My parents were just floating in the lobby,
Speaker 2: desperate for any update. I would come out, you know,
Speaker 2: to go and throw up in the bathroom or something,
Speaker 2: and they can't ask anything. They can't ask anything. I
Speaker 2: can't even like look at them. I can't because you're
Speaker 2: accused of colluding. If like, well, I've.
Speaker 1: Seen your mum describe it as watching her daughter getting raped,
Speaker 1: Like that's what it felt like. She says, it's funny
Speaker 1: that you say that, because I haven't heard that in
Speaker 1: a while, and I was thinking about it last night.
Speaker 1: She said that it was like watching me be raped
Speaker 1: with her hands tied behind her back.
Speaker 2: Like pretty visceral a description. Yeah, it is disempowering. Like
Speaker 2: isn't a strong enough word.
Speaker 1: He was found not guilty. Were you there for the verdict? No,
Speaker 1: were you expecting that verdict? Yes, the verdict was very
Speaker 1: structurally unsurprising after the trial unfolded in the way that
Speaker 1: it unfolded. That's another episode. But I was in a
Speaker 1: meeting with the DPP, the Office of the Director of
Speaker 1: Public Prosecutions, while the verdict was being given. And even
Speaker 1: though the verdict was obvious, It's funny, I never actually
Speaker 1: got told it by anyone, which really so inappropriate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my friend Nick, Like, my friend Nick confirmed it
Speaker 2: with me like weeks later, Like that's so, that's crazy,
Speaker 2: that's crazy. I've had friends who've been to trial who
Speaker 2: they wouldn't even wait for them to get to court
Speaker 2: in time for the verdict, Like it's just got nothing
Speaker 2: to do with you, You're just a witness.
Speaker 1: Well I've seen stats, well recent stats, Bure of Statistic Stats,
Speaker 1: only seven percent of reports.
Speaker 2: And in a conviction. Yeah, yeah, that's miniskill if you
Speaker 2: think though, like if we talk about like the structural
Speaker 2: design of a system, If a prosecutor has handed the
Speaker 2: brief of evidence yesterday and they learned your name and
Speaker 2: the rapist name yesterday, and they're expected to lead a
Speaker 2: case versus him being prepared for two years, being like coach,
Speaker 2: a right to silence, like all of the things that
Speaker 2: they are afforded as defendants. It is no wonder that
Speaker 2: cases are falling over. Victims have no rights but the
Speaker 2: few procedural protections that we are afforded, which relates to
Speaker 2: our private records, like counseling notes, even those few protections
Speaker 2: are routinely circumvented without consequence. And so what you're doing
Speaker 2: is you're putting the victim on trial, like we're prosecuting
Speaker 2: the victim. He has a right to silence. She's up
Speaker 2: there talking about why she is making up the assault
Speaker 2: because her parents got divorced when she was a kid,
Speaker 2: and that's led her to feel like revengeful against men,
Speaker 2: like information that has nothing to do with anything and
Speaker 2: is also not meant to be in the courtroom in
Speaker 2: front of a jury. And then no one's objecting. It's
Speaker 2: like we're reinforcing myths in front of a jury, and
Speaker 2: then like wondering why we have a culture of impunity
Speaker 2: when they're going out into the world with those myths
Speaker 2: like reinforced, like you're in a fancy courtroom. There's a
Speaker 2: guy in a wig and he's saying that she'su gang.
Speaker 2: So she asked for it, and no one says otherwise.
Speaker 1: What I found refreshing with your advocacy work is you're
Speaker 1: very clear in the things that you think need to change,
Speaker 1: and they're big things that you think will make a
Speaker 1: big difference. One we've got with you we can, which
Speaker 1: is like filling that literacy gap. Two you think having
Speaker 1: an independent lawyer for a victim is a game changer?
Speaker 1: Are we anywhere close to having that? Yeah, we're pretty close.
Speaker 1: We've got it up and running in a couple of states.
Speaker 1: It calls that it is pretty cool. It already exists
Speaker 1: like in limited forms in New South Wales and Queensland.
Speaker 1: But we've got three pilots up, plus every other jurisdiction
Speaker 1: that didn't.
Speaker 2: Have a pilot now has one. But so far they're
Speaker 2: only providing independent legal advice, which is great, but they
Speaker 2: still if we can change legislation, they've got the infrastructure
Speaker 2: to go further and see it through and provide the
Speaker 2: representation piece. Those pilots are also being used to test
Speaker 2: some of the other Australian Law Reform Commission recommendations like
Speaker 2: Justice Navigators or some of them are looking a bit
Speaker 2: more into restorative justice. We don't have very clear pathways
Speaker 2: for that in Australia when we know that a lot
Speaker 2: of victim survivors would prefer that but don't even know
Speaker 2: what it looks like. So I'm trying to plug some
Speaker 2: holes at the moment by changing legislation so that those
Speaker 2: pilots can all consistently provide the same thing, to help
Speaker 2: stop with the confusion for victims who have no idea
Speaker 2: what's going on, who are navigating a system completely blindly,
Speaker 2: but also to help with post cou justice. Really, like
Speaker 2: it's not fair that some people have X and others don't.
Speaker 2: So yeah, things are changed and it is slow and
Speaker 2: it is painful, but I really feel that independent legal
Speaker 2: representation is the closest to like a panacea reform that
Speaker 2: will get in my lifetime. I mean, until we decide
Speaker 2: to block the system and start again. Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: really is the big bowling ball that can pick up
Speaker 2: so many different siloed failures. Like I mean, our legislation
Speaker 2: is only as strong as it's enforcement mechanisms, and like
Speaker 2: so much of the problems we see. I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of them are just structurally. A lot of the
Speaker 2: problems with the system are structural, they've been designed that way.
Speaker 2: But a lot of them are about a lack of enforcement,
Speaker 2: Like there's legislation that is in place that is not
Speaker 2: being enforced that if it were enforced, it would help.
Speaker 2: And independent legal representation is like the through line for
Speaker 2: me in my view.
Speaker 1: You've been working on advocacy, working on trying to change
Speaker 1: the system for four years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you think you would see such progress four
Speaker 2: years down the track?
Speaker 1: There is so much more that needs to be done,
Speaker 1: but you have managed to help move some major pieces.
Speaker 2: Did you think you'd see this happen? Not even remotely?
Speaker 2: When I joined the expert Advisory Group informing the Australian
Speaker 2: Law Reform Commission's inquiry, which in and of itself is
Speaker 2: like a once in a generation chance for this to
Speaker 2: be put on the map, so long as things are implemented,
Speaker 2: and don't you know, it doesn't just join the shelf
Speaker 2: gathering dust of all the other Royal commissions and inquiries
Speaker 2: and plans. Day one I saw independent legal representation like
Speaker 2: on a bullet point on a list and expanding it
Speaker 2: out to the things that it has been recommended to
Speaker 2: be expanded to. I just wanted to get them afoot
Speaker 2: in the courtroom because once they're there, like watch the
Speaker 2: floodgates open, people will see the benefits like we're saving money,
Speaker 2: we're not destable anything, we're not infringing on the rights
Speaker 2: of the accused. We are actually contributing to the integrity
Speaker 2: and efficiency of the system. I did not think that
Speaker 2: would happen. I just wanted I was like just a
Speaker 2: foot a foot in the in the courtroom, and to
Speaker 2: have that so blatantly and clearly written in a document
Speaker 2: as you know, profound as the Australian Law Reform Commission
Speaker 2: Inquiries Report. I yeah, I burst into tears when I
Speaker 2: saw it, honestly, which is really lame, but I was tired. Sarah.
Speaker 1: I'm I am so sorry for what happened to you,
Speaker 1: but I am so thankful for what you're doing now, Like,
Speaker 1: thank goodness we have people like you helping to change
Speaker 1: the system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for saying that. I think I've got
Speaker 2: to get better at taking compliments. So I'm trying to
Speaker 2: do that thing where I look at you and I
Speaker 2: say thank you and I instead of going oh no,
Speaker 2: no no, but I mean, I really feel like lived
Speaker 2: experience is the way forward in combination with cross sector collaboration,
Speaker 2: because I mean, no one can do this on their own.
Speaker 2: This is a whole of community problem. It requires all
Speaker 2: of us, It requires immense collaboration. We probably should mobilize
Speaker 2: the private sector. Like the failures aren't just failing victims.
Speaker 2: It's actually the least of it. This is about society
Speaker 2: and like a civic duty that we all have. So
Speaker 2: I felt like there's something Saxon Mullen said years ago
Speaker 2: about you know, her hands were already dirty, might as
Speaker 2: well keep going. And I also feel that, you know,
Speaker 2: if not me, someone else has got to dedicate their
Speaker 2: life or ruin their life doing this advocacy as well.
Speaker 2: So for now, I'm going to keep keep going fighting
Speaker 2: the fight. I know that we're getting a little bit
Speaker 2: closer every day.
Speaker 1: To reiterate, Joshua was found not guilty by a jury trial.
Speaker 1: This is Sarah's truth and Sarah's story, and a big
Speaker 1: thank you to her for joining us on this episode today.
Speaker 1: You can find out more about with you. We can
Speaker 1: at the link in our show notes. You can also
Speaker 1: find a petition to keep Counseling Confidential started by journalist
Speaker 1: and advocate Nina Fanel. Since our interview with Sarah, the
Speaker 1: new South Wales government has announced a landmark inquiry to
Speaker 1: determine better ways to protect the counseling records of victim survivors.
Speaker 1: A report will be issued in June next year. If
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and
Speaker 1: review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It really helps others
Speaker 1: find the show. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with another true crime conversation