NO MEANS NO

There was a reckless, irresponsible (and to me obscene) quote in the media this week from that legal cowboy Colin Lovitt QC.

Apparently the president of the Carlton Cricket Club told supporters at an awards night: "If you are going to be raped, you might as well lie back and enjoy it".

Even if he was trying to draw a long bow for some other argument this is simply unacceptable. And I am not the most politically correct person around.

For too long women, rape victims, have been treated insensitively, arrogantly and ignorantly by men on both sides of the Bar in court. I have written before about a judge calling a brutal sexual assault "a garden variety rape". Whatever that means. And another one who virtually said that you can't rape a prostitute.

When I was with the Nine Network on TV one of the most harrowing programmes we did was with rape victims. The title was "No Means No". And the best remembered line was "what part of the word NO don't you understand". Because most rape victims know their attacker. And sadly many, if not most, rape victims don't report the crime.

They don't trust our justice system. They don't want to be verbally raped again in court.

Lovitt's comments were, as I said, grossly offensive. And maybe more so because minutes before I read them I received an e-mail from a rape victim. And she summed it all up. And it was harrowing and it was tragic and it shows how our legal system lets women down.

She wrote:

"On Friday night I was raped. It was by someone that I know and I am still in a state of shock. I was looked after on the weekend by a friend who spoke to the police on Saturday.

I have decided not to press charges mainly because it seems pointless. I can get counselling and attempt to move on with my life or I can press charges and accuse someone who will deny it happened --even though he was crying after it happened. If I did press charges a judge will decide who is telling the truth and even if there is a guilty verdict, I have such a lack of faith in the justice system that nothing will end up happening.

Why go through hell once again for no result? I wonder what repercussions our current judicial system is causing and how many people there are like myself who are not reporting crimes because it seems fruitless. I feel angry, sick and powerless.

Rape is a terrible crime and our judges don't seem to agree. I have been crying since it happened and feel broken. But I don't want a sanctimonious old man to give the person who violated me a slap on the wrist and tell him to have a nice day."

I read that. And it made me cry. In my reply I implored her to press charges. Her rapist last Friday could be another victim's rapist next Friday.

But apart from the sexual assault the message coming through out of all this is that women don't feel protected by the legal system. And for good reason.

In recent times judges have given suspended sentences. One referred to a rape of a sleeping woman as "opportunistic". That is why 10,000 people turned up on a Sunday morning on the steps of Parliament House on Spring Street one Sunday morning last year when I held a protest rally against "manifestly inadequate" sentences for sexual crimes. Those people were echoing Peter Finch from the movie Network when he opened the window and shouted: " I'm fed up and I'm not going to take it any more!"

It is why more people are looking at the American system where judges - even though they are usually politically appointed by the party in power -can be removed by being "recalled" if there are enough legitimate signatures of protest on a citizens' protest petition.

There is merit in that. It is dangerous in a democracy when people in the street, and especially victims, find our legal eagles "manifestly inadequate". When a rape victim - like the one I just quoted - won't seek justice because, in her heart, she does not believe she will get it. That is a legal travesty. And a legal tragedy.

We still have too many conservative, out of touch, out of reality, old codgers sitting on our court benches. Many of them are sexist. Some are racist. They could probably not conceive what it would be like for a woman to be personally, physically assaulted and humiliated. Could not contemplate the mental situation afterwards.

Could not conceive how an unwanted sexual encounter could mentally scar her so badly that it could affect any future intimate relations for years.

The woman who e-mailed me this week said "I don't want to be known because I haven't told most of my family or friends."

That is so sad. She is the victim. She did nothing wrong. And yet she is too ashamed to even tell the people who should be her badly-needed support group.

It makes me despair.

April 24, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005