#Luke lazarus trial#
#Luke lazarus free#

“Just super-carefree and just kind of getting started. It was as hard to watch Mullins describe the details of that night and the events afterwards as it was to comprehend the legal machinations that failed her.īefore that night almost exactly five years ago, in her own words, she had lived a sheltered life and was excited to be on the cusp of adulthood. I've often wondered about this woman: here & on #fourcorners she tells her story An 18 y-o says she was raped in a dark alley four minutes after meeting a man at a club. A courageous young woman who has maintained a fight for justice that anyone could readily be forgiven for abandoning.Ī gripping, important story on consent. Louise Milligan’s report ‘I am that girl’ revealed a remarkably articulate and composed 23 year old.

If it’s not an enthusiastic yes, it’s a no. “All you need to say is, ‘do you want to be here? And very clearly, ‘do you want to have sex with me? Do you want to be doing what we’re doing?’ And if it’s not an enthusiastic yes, then it’s not enough.

And I think if you don’t have that, then you’re not good to go,” Saxon Mullins said. Enthusiastic consent is really easy to determine. “On a social level, I think we need to teach people about making sure that the person that you are with wants to be with you. Because for all of the ghastly details we have known about that dreadful evening until Monday we didn’t know the young woman at the centre of this controversial rape trial.

#Luke lazarus trial#

(In late 2017 the Criminal Court of Appeal found the trial judge had erred in her judgement but determined a third retrial would be unfair on Lazarus.)Ī fierce desire to change the way consent is determine is what led Saxon Mullins to give up her anonymity to tell her story to ABC’s Four Corners this week. It is a legal technicality that is hard to bear that poses serious questions about how the law interprets. For rape to have occurred it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was no reasonable basis for the belief that the complainant was consenting.Ī young man had sex with a teenager without her consent.

#Luke lazarus free#

After spending less than 12 months behind bars he was acquitted and set free on account of the trial judge determining that while Saxon Mullins did not consent to the intercourse, she was not satisfied that Lazarus was aware she had not consented. He appealed and was awarded a retrial but without a jury. A jury determined otherwise in 2015 and Lazarus was convicted of rape and sentenced to a minimum of three years in jail. Luke Lazarus pleaded not guilty and insisted the sexual encounter had been consensual. You might know these details because they were revealed in the almost five year highly publicised legal battle that followed which included two trials and two appeals. An examination that revealed injuries consistent with Mullins’ account of the incident. You might know that while that was going on Saxon Mullins was undergoing a painful medical examination after reporting the events to the police.