The allegation that a serving Liberal allegedly raped a teenager in the 1980s is a shocking claim that is now impossible for police to investigate.
The woman is dead. The allegations centre around events that happened more than 30 years ago, before the Liberal entered politics.
Exactly one year ago, NSW Police established Strike Force Wyndarra to investigate the claims. She met with detectives from the NSW Police Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad in February 2020 to reveal that she had been raped by the man.
But those investigations were suspended after she took her own life in June, 2020.
It is a wicked problem for the Prime Minister because it is highly unlikely that the police can properly investigate. The key witness for the prosecution is dead. Finance Minister Simon Birmingham has called for the police to be able to do their job. But they can’t. The idea that police can resolve this matter — or anyone can — is a false hope.
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But her friends were not prepared to let the dead woman’s claims die with her. That’s why her supporters including lawyers and business leaders took up her case after her death, insisting on a coronial inquiry and writing to the Prime Minister Scott Morrison detailing historical rape allegations.
In the years leading up to her death she also contacted former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Penny Wong and senior female figures in the Liberal Party.
The revelations have also been shocking for me personally, because I only learned the identity of the woman from friends on Friday night after the ABC’s Louise Milligan first published the story.
The complainant was a woman I attended school with in Adelaide, and later university, during the period she said she was raped in 1988 as a 16-year-old, which she said occurred interstate.
Over the weekend, I was shocked to discover that more than half a dozen of these friends had heard these allegations directly from her in recent years.
She seemed to be building to some sort of crescendo in those final years, making contact with people who knew her at the time of the alleged rape and disclosing to them what she said happened. She engaged lawyers. She also spoke to the police.
However, I want to be very clear that I don’t recall her ever mentioning the allegation to me at the time and I imagine it would certainly be something I would remember.
As a result, I cannot offer an informed opinion on what did or did not occur at the time.
My memories are purely of her, what I remember about her character and the sort of person she was. It’s important to those that knew her that she is also remembered for these things.
She was a very serious person, smart, acerbic, self possessed and quite brilliant. I remember she was also very kind. She spoke several languages
As a teenager, she was in the year above me at school, very academically gifted and the sort of person who won academic prizes and held leadership positions.
She also kept diaries as a teenager and some friends say parts of these accounts were written in French, to avoid being easily understood if anyone found them.
My closest friends remain those I met at Adelaide University in the early 1990s. Many old friends have correspondence from her about the allegations. One man who corresponded with her is someone I lived with in a share house a few years later. I have seen this correspondence, text messages and emails.
I have also listened to a 45-minute recording of her discussing the allegations and her contact with NSW police.
This is a record of great difficulty however, because I do not believe she was aware she was being recorded by the person who she confided in.
She had discussed going to the media and how that might work.
I learned of her death last year, some months after the event, through a mutual friend when we did a 35km charity walk together.
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It was quite shocking to me to learn of her suicide that day, in the way it is when people you first knew as teenager pass away. I understand she made several attempts before the final attempt.
I now know that person who told me she had died that day was also aware of the allegations she had made.
Many friends of mine from that time became lawyers and some were trying to help her navigate the legal system and how to engage with police in the lead up to her death.
Perhaps most disturbingly, I learned that she had a photograph of herself with the man she said raped her and in the months leading up to her death she replicated the hair cut in that photograph.
Her decision to return to the distinctive hair cut nearly 30 years later was naturally very disturbing to those around her.
It was sad to hear of these troubles because she was one of most academically brilliant of all the people I went to university with, a group that included Penny Wong and various other people who went on to great success and even national prominence.
But her life never worked out like that.
After her death, some friends confided they had wondered why she didn’t fulfil that early promise and about the difficulties she had clearly experienced.
I don’t have any answers on why things worked out that way for her, but like any inquisitive person, I do wonder about the reasons.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMinQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9uYXRpb25hbC9wb2xpdGljcy9oaXN0b3JpY2FsLXJhcGUtY2xhaW1zLWFnYWluc3QtbGliZXJhbC1hcmUtYS1wcm9ibGVtLWZvci1zY290dC1tb3JyaXNvbi9uZXdzLXN0b3J5LzhiNDE3Y2JmZTkwNDc2YTQ0MDZjYmQyZDg2MWNjMWYz0gGdAWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLm5ld3MuY29tLmF1L25hdGlvbmFsL3BvbGl0aWNzL2hpc3RvcmljYWwtcmFwZS1jbGFpbXMtYWdhaW5zdC1saWJlcmFsLWFyZS1hLXByb2JsZW0tZm9yLXNjb3R0LW1vcnJpc29uL25ld3Mtc3RvcnkvOGI0MTdjYmZlOTA0NzZhNDQwNmNiZDJkODYxY2MxZjM?oc=5
2021-02-28 19:57:29Z
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