True Crime Conversations

00:02 It's October 2019, and Sarah's just been on a date with her new love interest, Joshua. They ate and laughed their way around Sydney's noodle markets, and now they're back at his place. 00:13 Their relationship has already become sexually intimate, but tonight Sarah isn't feeling well. 00:19 I don't want to have sex tonight, she tells him. It has nothing to do with you, she assures. 00:24 Good to know you're disgusted by me, he replies. 00:28 And before she can even comprehend his retort, Sarah remembers being flipped on her back. 00:34 She describes him proceeding to violently rape her. 00:38 She remembers saying no multiple times, screaming, kicking, but it just made it worse. So she went limp, waited for it to be over. 00:49 I'm having a shower, he announces afterwards. 00:53 Sarah's head is spinning. She's numb, in shock, terrified. 00:58 As he exits the room and turns on the water, Sarah runs. 01:10 I'm Gemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. 01:21 Picture this. 01:22 You've accused someone of rape, of strangling you, suffocating you, of leaving you with nightmares and PTSD. 01:30 You've plucked up the courage to go to the police and report it. 01:34 He can surround himself with the best lawyers money can buy. 01:39 He can have those lawyers dig into the deepest, darkest and most private parts of your life, like your conversations with your therapist, and have them read out in a court of law. 01:50 He can spend the years leading up to the trial strategising and preparing. 01:56 He doesn't have to even take the stand and answer questions, as is his right. 02:02 You, the alleged victim, have no one. 02:05 Because the prosecution doesn't work for you, they work for the state. You are simply evidence in your own case. 02:12 You spend those years isolated and desperate for any basic information about what's happening. 02:19 You meet the prosecutor assigned one day before trial, for an hour. 02:25 You walk into court and are expected to answer every and all questions put to you in days-long interrogation processes. 02:34 This was Sarah's reality, and she is not the exception. 02:38 She is the rule. 02:40 This is how we currently treat victims of sexual assault in Australia. 02:45 And after navigating the system in New South Wales herself, Sarah Rosenberg has spent the last four years advocating to change it. 02:53 She knows that's an uphill battle. So in the meantime, she's created resources to help victims navigate the system as it stands. It's called With You We Can. 03:04 Just a note, Joshua is not his name. It's a pseudonym used to allow Sarah to talk more openly about her case because he was found not guilty by a jury. 03:14 Sarah joins us now to talk about it all. 03:22 Sarah, thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. Take me back to 23-year-old you. It was 2019. What were you doing in life? Where were you at? 03:33 2019, I had just... come home from university in Canberra. I wrapped up in 2018 and I moved home and I was excited. I started an internship at the Smith family, like the children's education charity. I ended up getting my getting my own job funded there and went on to work there for a while. But I remember around the time this all happening, there's literally a photo of me heading into my first day of work with like the lanyard around my neck on the bus. 04:03 sending it to this guy, which is what we're here to talk about. But I was very excited to be back in Sydney after being away. I was also nervous because I have a chronic autoimmune disease that really affects my day to day and certainly back then affected it a lot more. So I was nervous about starting work. 04:26 But it was a it was a new and exciting time for me, like it was new chapter vibes. 04:33 You met Joshua on a dating app, as we all do nowadays. 04:37 Tell me about the start. What was he like? What drew you to him? 04:41 So we met on Bumble and it just went so quickly and it went so quickly and things like love bombing weren't phrases back then. Like, I feel like things have changed a lot. 04:59 I was just like head over heels for this guy. 05:06 On paper, he sounded amazing. Like he was head boy at his school. Just like all of the things that you would obviously seek in someone who seems passionate and active and driven and stable and has their life together. 05:24 And it is funny because when I'm answering these questions to you, I'm trying to put myself back to how I felt and what I saw at the time. Well, so much has happened since. It's tricky. It is tricky, but it is like as we get into this, like it is worth noting that While I'm saying these things, while I'm saying that like I was head over heels and I was being swept off my feet and I was really into him and I was really excited to have someone so interested in me, it felt like my first kind of adult relationship, like back home after uni, everyone has their jobs and lives in separate houses and you actually have to like make time to see each other. 06:07 So it felt really adult, which was exciting. But as I'm Speaking, I think it's important to note that even back then, while intellectually I was so excited and I was drawn to him and I felt like he seemed stable. 06:28 Physically and somatically, I absolutely did not feel that way. Very early on. Interesting. Very early on, I was fearful of him. 06:38 There was a night I even locked myself in my parents' room when he was staying over out of nowhere. Like I was just... What sparked it? I know. Do you know what sparked it? It's weird. It's like because I was having such cognitive dissonance. It's something I talk about a lot. Like cognitive dissonance is crazy. And we need cognitive dissonance to go about our daily lives and like function because the world is heinous. And if we deal with that every day, none of us are going to get up and get out of bed. 07:04 I was in a state of, I guess... 07:08 I'm kind of, I never thought that I would be a victim of domestic violence or a victim of anything really. But I look back and I'm like, I was so the perfect person to prey on. I was really vulnerable. I'm really close to my family because I've been really sick as well. So I'm extra close to them at a time that in your life is formative because you're meant to be like becoming an adult and individualizing. And I was like at home on my deathbed. My parents were abroad at the time. 07:37 I had had, I'd sort of like cut ties with a lot of people from university and I was back, you know, in my hometown, but, you know, totally different group of people. Things have changed after four years of uni. 07:51 And I just quite honestly remember thinking, that I just wanted to stay still. I didn't care who came next. I didn't care what it was. I just didn't want any more kind of drama, anything that could impact my health. I'm someone that was sort of like, I'm an empath. Like I'm someone that takes on other people's stuff and really gets invested in a lot of things when it's, you know, that old kind of picky battles saying. I just remember like, I want to stay still. 08:23 And all this guy did was stay still long enough for me to, like, sync up with him. And actually, all of the things that I'm going, oh, I'm being swept off my feet and we're so into each other, were not real. He was mimicking, like, my behaviours, mimicking my interests. Like, all those, like, classic narcissistic traits that are associated with love bombing for real. Not love bombing as a catchphrase, but love bombing as a tactic of control. And so there were two weeks of just... 08:55 this pure bliss. And he told me he loved me within those two weeks. And he proposed to me and he moved houses to be around the corner from me. And all of these things, right, which and you now you go, oh, my God, crazy. And it's funny because at the time, intellectually, I was like, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. Somatically, I immediately, like, I did not say I love him back. I was like, that's insane. And I intentionally didn't tell the people around me. None of my friends had met him. 09:26 Every time we would go out, he would, he had a strange sort of, I don't know if it was a relationship with alcohol or if it was just because his walls were coming down because he was inebriated. 09:38 Every time he would drink, he would drink like too much for what the occasion warranted, and he would become hyper hyper fixated and jealous on me with... 09:47 whoever like was around like him and his friend you belong to together he would throw tantrums he would lie on the ground in the middle of the road um you just met this guy and I just met this guy and so while I say that intellectually I was going oh my god amazing somatically I like knew the whole time I just was I think I was intentionally suppressing my understanding that this guy was not a Whether he was good or bad, different story, but him being stable and safe, that was totally a lie I was telling myself. 10:18 I was fearful of him from the start. His eyes in particular, like you'll later, like my statement talks a lot about his eyes, his red eyes, whenever he was drinking. Like I was scared of this guy and I was just not telling anyone about it because I was going, oh my God, I'm in an adult relationship. This could be it for me. Wouldn't that be nice to not have to ever like go on a dating app again or... Like, I don't know, it was a vulnerable time in my life where I think I just wanted to stay still. And I don't know if anyone can relate to that. 10:49 I'm sure they can. It was just sort of like, I guess it was a feeling of settling, really. 10:53 Let's go to the night. Yep. You went on a date. Sydney Noodle Markets. Noodle Markets. How good. How did the start of the night go? Were you... 11:03 In sync, were you having a good time? So I'd just come back from a trip with my family or the girls in the family from Byron Bay. And during that trip, I got really sick. And by really sick, that just looks like a flare up of my autoimmune disease. It wasn't like I had a flu or anything. I was just physically not thriving, probably because the flight had taken me out. So coming home, I was not in a good way. 11:30 And he had never seen me that unwell before, so I was nervous. 11:36 I was excited to be spending time together again. 11:41 But I could tell that something was off and me doing that thing that a lot of women do, I think, kind of bent over backwards to explain away what was going on or to I literally gave him a speech about... I felt like I got on my soapbox and was like, I know you haven't seen me this sick before. Just want to let you know that it's okay, it's nothing to do with you. I almost feel like he was taking it personally. But I mean, for tax purposes, the night was fine. 12:15 We had noodles. 12:16 It was nice. He had a couple of glasses of wine. I think I had one. He had a couple more. I can't really stomach... wine at the best of times, but also especially not when I'm feeling sick. But it started out as a very normal evening. 12:33 You went back to his house and once again, you told him you felt sick. Yeah. You had already been sexually intimate before. Yeah. 12:41 But you said, I'm not feeling it tonight. 12:44 It wasn't like a I'm not feeling it because he was trying to initiate intimacy. 12:50 It was like he was being weird And I felt the need to get on my soapbox and I turned to him and I said, my skin hurts right now. Like, I don't want to be touched. That has nothing to do with you. 13:06 My nerves are tingling. This is because I'm inflamed. I feel like you are mad at me. Like, what's going on? 13:19 And this is when it happened. 13:24 He turned to me and he said, good to know that you're disgusted by me. 13:29 And then he turned the light off and then it happened. So it wasn't like we were like in a process of, hey, should we sleep together? Should we not? It was like, not even in the kind of the realm of the conversation at all. It wasn't like something we did every night, certainly. 13:49 It wasn't assumed. It wasn't a coercive, oh, come on, please. It was like not even... No discussion, really. Not even, we weren't even talking about it. So I was just kind of shocked by what he had said and felt so upset. 14:08 by that after I've been so vulnerable and I'm trying to make him feel better, which is crazy in the first place that I'm trying to make you feel better, that I feel sick and you seem to be taking it personally. Like, I don't even know what that means or what that says about a person, but it was so sudden. It happened straight away and it escalated very quickly. 14:29 As much as you feel comfortable sharing, what do you remember about what happened next? 14:34 I remember his neck. 14:37 And his face pushed into me. 14:43 And I remember the things he was saying. 14:45 Because once again, they were really strange things. 14:52 He was saying, I knew you never loved me. I knew you were always thinking about other men. 14:58 In his like low, insidious voice that I did not recognise. 15:03 And I started... 15:06 like pulling his hair and pushing his body. And I was really pinned down. 15:14 And this is like the... 15:17 He was inside of me at this point, like the rape had started. 15:21 But I in that moment was... I think about how later on, and you talk about trauma responses and people are like, it's OK that you did this or did that. And it's like I fought my little legs off. 15:36 I was pulling his hair, it wasn't working. I was screaming in his ear, it wasn't working. I started kicking my legs, it wasn't working. 15:45 And then he strangled me. And he strangled me with both hands and sitting up on his knees with the full force of his body. And I still, I was fighting, I was scratching, I was pulling, got no bloody nails, I picked them off. I was pulling and then... 16:06 He let go and I gasped for air. And then very quickly I was suffocated with a pillow that he had grabbed from next to my head. And he sort of smoothed his hands across my face and pressed down. So I was really stuck under there. 16:22 During that time, It's believed that I lost consciousness. 16:29 I remember focusing on the lights and the patterns that I was seeing, because there was a lot of pressure being placed on my eyes, and I couldn't breathe. 16:41 And when the pillow did eventually get removed, I made a very intentional decision to go limp. 16:52 So that's where the freezing kicked in for me because I had tried fighting and it had made it worse. I'd just been strangled and suffocated. So I went limp. It kept going. There's like a second round of rape because He flipped me over. 17:09 He grabbed my hair and pulled me up by my hair until I was on all fours. When he was done, he let go and I just collapsed onto the... 17:22 Like no part of me was holding myself up by that stage. Like I was just limp and I was numb. And I curled into a ball and I got my legs ready in case he came back. 17:33 But all that happened was he grabbed my towel from the back of the door and threw it at me and said, I'm going to take a shower and maybe assuming that I... 17:44 would join. And it felt like I was lying there forever. I remember touching my face and noticing that I'd been crying. I didn't know. And then something clicked and I grabbed everything of mine in the room and bolted. 18:02 He must have heard me. I mean, like it's an old terrace house. He must have heard the padding on the stairs. And he chased me and got to the door at the same time as me. I put my hand on the door handle, he put his hand on the door to stop it. 18:20 And then came the immediate, like, I know now that this was bullshit, this immediate justification. I'm a monster. I belong in jail. People that even think of doing that belong in jail. I don't know what's happened to me. Something's wrong with me. I've had a brain snap. All of this stuff. 18:39 And I remember it so well. I looked up and I looked at him and I realised that was the first time we had made eye contact since he had said he was disgusted by me and then very violently assaulted me. Like I hadn't looked at him the entire time. I couldn't get his eyes to look at me. I looked him in the eyes and I just opened the door and he let me. And I went to my car, which was parked across the road. 19:05 That is so heavy. 19:07 Thank you for telling us that. I've heard you, well, I read in your article with Nina Fennell, who we've had on this podcast, she's an advocate of sexual violence, being one of the things, and she has told your story. And a quote in there from you I saw was that you feel like you want to tell the details of exactly what happened. Why? Why do you like to tell people that? 19:36 There are a lot of reasons behind it, and a lot of them are, you know, it's the same reason that I staunchly identify as a victim and not a survivor, because the story of resilience is a lot more marketable. And with the details of my story, I think we so often hear which is incredibly important. We so often hear about sexual coercion and how it goes so unnoticed in intimate partner relationships. 20:08 But this wasn't that. There are people who do intend to rape and who do use it as a tool of control and who don't do this just because they haven't learnt better. And I think people often hear rape and they automatically tune out because it's a woman's issue. But a story of violence is believable. And I just think... 20:40 It's a way to keep people engaged. I mean, people love the gory details. It's clickbait as much as anything. But I don't want to water anything down to make other people uncomfortable. And I also know that physical aggression is taken more seriously than sexual violence. And so it's as much a way to keep people reading than anything. 21:05 It's a lot for you to carry, though, having to think that while telling your story. 21:10 I mean, it's a lot for all of the whole world's a lot to carry for anyone. 21:18 Up next, Sarah reveals the first message she received from Joshua after leaving his house that night. 21:25 Once you'd left, he started texting you, didn't he? Yeah, yeah. 21:29 What were in those messages? He was checking that I was okay. He kept apologising. 21:35 He wanted to know that I'd gotten home safe. 21:37 He didn't know that I had not gotten home safe. I had not moved and was sitting in the car. He was still out there. Yeah. I... 21:46 I remember looking like in my, there were all these moments of like seeing myself, like looking in the car mirror and like you just, oh God, this can't be happening. My first instinct was, okay, I've got to go to the hospital, get a rape kit. And then immediately rape kit? 22:01 What? That didn't happen. That kind of happened to me. And then I was like, okay, obviously I'll just go home. 22:07 And then I was like, 22:09 No, my parents, I don't want to worry. My parents, they'll be so worried. Like, they're so happy for me. And like, I just immediately started belittling my experience and justifying his behaviour. 22:22 And I lay back in the car, I put the seat back and I put on like rain noises from that Calm app. Shout out Calm, like the free rain noises. 22:30 And I don't know how long, I mean, I do because it's in my statement, but for me, I don't know how much time passed. Like it felt like once again, an eternity. And then the phone started going and I didn't know what else to do. This is someone I thought loved me. I did not want feel like what had happened could have possibly happened. I thought I must have been interpreting it wrong, like I'd got it all wrong. 22:56 So I responded to his messages and he came out and he sat in the car with me. Did he? Yep. And we just sat there listening to rain noises for a long time, just in silence. 23:09 It very quickly became a situation where I was worried he would hurt himself because he was so ashamed of what he'd done. 23:17 And I fell victim, and my whole family did, we fell victim to this narrative really quickly. 23:23 And we set about trying to get him help. 23:27 I don't know what kind of help. I know now that, you know, people who have mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators, so certainly that wasn't it. 23:39 And it's a really common loophole that perpetrators actually abuse to try and get out of court hearings and things. 23:46 He'd said he was worried he'd gone into some kind of psychosis and he started like talking about things that, I don't know, sounded reasonable at the time. Like he'd done drugs in the past and done some intense drugs that I hadn't known about. And that was the old me. But, you know, maybe something to do with that. Like he just it sounded reasonable. And I mean, I'm not a big believer in the carceral system. My mum used to be a lawyer and certainly wasn't a big believer either. 24:15 We knew enough to know that it would be bad even for someone who was well, and I'm not a well person physically. And... 24:23 We knew it wouldn't bring about any good outcomes for him either. And so we sort of set about this process of like basically hosting interventions. Like it sounds so silly now. It sounds like a stupid movie. We were like hosting interventions with his parents. There was like a joint psychiatric consultation. Like... 24:46 We were like, in hindsight, we were bargaining with him. He was bargaining. Please, I'll do anything for you not to report. 24:54 And so I wanted him to stop working with children. I wanted him to get intervention, whatever that looked like. And I wanted him to tell his friends and family the truth because I wanted him to be held accountable to his actions. But I wanted... 25:11 them to they had all said really nasty things and blocked me on social media. And, you know, he would have said like my crazy ex-girlfriend or something, even though we hadn't broken up. And it was awful. It added to the trauma tenfold. So I wanted him to do these things and it became very clear that he wasn't doing any of them and we were being manipulated. And that's when I made the decision to go to the police. I felt like I had no choice. 25:43 I tried to do everything I could to not report, actually, which is kind of funny because I've come a very long way since then. 25:50 What did reporting look like for you? 25:53 How did that process go? 25:56 God, every time I zoom into one part of the process, it's like... 26:01 In and of itself, this could be enough to destabilise someone. 26:07 Step one. Step one, God. 26:11 It took three police stations and five offices to finalise a statement. 26:21 It would take 24 hours over three months. COVID was closing in and New South Wales Police didn't have Zoom. 26:30 felt like an uphill battle from the start. And it wasn't just because I was retelling my story over and over, it was because every part of the process takes away your agency, just like it was taken during the assault, right at a time that I was trying to reclaim it by doing something about it. 26:50 It's like the kinds of heads ups that you think were common decency just went out the window. And I mean, like a lot of the officers were victims of the system as well. They're working out of rooms that look like jail cells with no windows. They're overburdened. 27:04 I remember feeling a lot of, like, compassion for them. And at the same time, I had to be escorted to go to the bathroom at the station and I felt like a criminal. 27:13 Didn't you have one detective ask you to spell vagina? Yeah, I did. I did. 27:18 Like, there's no excuses there. 27:20 It's like, just don't put someone, don't make a victim of sexual violence a guinea pig for a detective. She was new. Like, bless her cotton socks. 27:30 Like, it makes me feel really bad. 27:33 It was bad. And why were you bounced to three? Because you went to one, you told your story, and they said, oh, no, sorry, you're going to have to go here. 27:42 Yeah. And they didn't share your statement. Like the people who are meant to have the answers don't even have the answers. And at the same time, duty officers are the least... 27:50 experienced in a station. Like the person who answers the phone is the least likely to know how to help you. And that is so stupid. Like it's not their fault, but it's so stupid. But it's also sexual assault is something that is being reported every day. I know. 28:05 At such extreme levels, you'd think they could sort of get the... 28:10 fit together a little better. 28:12 It's so hard because... And there are certainly... 28:16 I'm lucky to have not experienced discrimination and racism and... I carry a lot of privilege and there are officers that certainly have been drawn to the job, I think, because of the power they can then wield. 28:33 I didn't really feel like for me... I felt like it was the result of a lack of legal literacy from the very people who were meant to be... Across that. Across it. And so, yeah, I definitely feel like it wasn't intentional. That kind of doesn't matter. When the harm is that... 28:53 bad. A process doesn't have to be cruel to do harm. All it has to do is not centre the experiences of victim survivors and the experiences of women generally. The law does not reflect the reality of women's lives at all. 29:10 So you found that reporting process cruel? It wasn't intentional. 29:15 it didn't have to be cruel to do harm. It was cruel, though. It was laughable, it was humiliating, and it was drawn out, and it was, you know, everything you hear that it is. And it was hopeful, and it was kind, and there were officers who I adored merely for being competent and changed my world just by sending me a text before calling me from the unknown number that I had become so scared of. Like, there is no one... 29:44 There is no one person. And even at the time I was going through it, I felt that way. I felt really sorry for the officers. 29:54 I felt really angry with the officers, but I felt sorry for them too. And that is not the experience of a lot of people who, you know, harm is done intentionally. But I just felt like... 30:05 This couldn't be... There was an overwhelming feeling of, this can't be working for you either. Like, this isn't good for me, obviously. But how is this efficient for you? Like, you guys are doing a disservice to your own job by... 30:21 breezing when it comes to victims like I think they've been taught to handle us with care so really basic common decency goes out the window and obviously that's not okay but I sort of think about all of the things that led to that point for an individual officer like maybe they're not supported in the workplace to have compassion um they are overburdened they they know a lot of them know that the system is hopeless. 30:50 That's not their job to make a decision about what a jury is or isn't going to think about you. That's called downstream decision making. And that is not up to them. But a lot of them probably think they're doing something useful by saving you. But the whole point is that this is about restoring agency. So it doesn't matter that it's not intentional. 31:11 It matters that you're doing harm. Like, this is about giving, this should be about giving victim survivors information and choice, even in the tiniest, tiniest details of the process. And like, yeah, maybe that feels stupid for them, so they ignore it in their training. Or maybe they just don't realise how significant it is to offer a victim this room or that room. 31:33 But at this point, with the crime being committed at this extent, knowing that we rely on victims to courageously speak up so that the state can do their job that they want to do and prosecute offenders, we can't keep going the way we're going. You're asking too much of them. Totally. Totally. 32:00 So Joshua was arrested and charged with six counts, including rape, intentional suffocation and intentional choking. 32:08 What was that? That sounds crazy, doesn't it? Wow. Yeah. Do you... Was it long after you'd reported? What was that process? Were you kept in kind of... Did you know that he was going to be charged? 32:20 Were you kept in kind of communication? So... 32:23 After I signed my statement, the last session of which in and of itself was four hours, and the first time I was told I could have a support person with me. 32:33 Shout out to my friend Nick. After that, the investigation began. It was three months, which is quite a quick turnaround for things like this. 32:43 I collected a lot of... 32:45 evidence myself, like I really supported the process and I've been asked whether I think the detectives would have been that rigorous. 32:54 Some of them certainly, but some of them not. But either way, I shouldn't have been asked to do that. 33:00 But it was three months until he was charged. And the detective in charge by that time, who I was really close to, she ended up coming to my 25th birthday, which was spent waiting for court. She made a decision to charge him and then call me because she knew how anxiety inducing it would have been. And so I was at family dinner and I got a call. Well, I got a text saying, I'm going to call you because we had like a routine by then. And I answered the call and I started just walking away from the table. 33:31 and she told me they had him in custody and had charged him, and I literally collapsed to the ground. I just melted. I never expected to get that far. 33:42 The whole time through the reporting process and the process of making a statement, I just kept saying to my parents, let's just keep going. Let's just see what evidence they collect, or let's just see if it goes any further, because no one wanted me to report. And I, at the start, didn't want to report. Somewhere along the way, I was like, you know, I deserve a chance at justice, and I think this is the way to help potential future victims of him. You know, I've got to do something. I'm so well supported, I'll give it a go. 34:13 But I never thought it would get as far as it did. And so hearing that was... 34:21 like wild to me i remember the room just spinning and i asked really silly questions immediately i said is he have you given him a drink like sarah yeah it was really weird she was like what the detective was like what are you talking about and i was like i don't know like he liked gatorade she's like what i was like is there like a chair in there like a table is it like a cell like like how long has he been there did he say anything he had rocked up with a lawyer so he he knew um and i found out in trial actually that he'd had a lawyer in the immediate aftermath which was horrific to find out because me and my family were trying to help him during that stage but he rocked up with a lawyer and you know didn't say anything and the detective when when they they have to read out you know the charge sheet and they also because it was intimate partner violence they automatically have to put in place an ADVO in New South Wales that's what it's called and it has to be read out 35:15 to him and it says really sternly like you like violence is not a normal part of a relationship And like you are now in the minority of like this and that. 35:24 And it's just really funny because it's not funny at all, but you've got to laugh otherwise you'll cry. But it's just brutal. And they read it to him and the detective in charge got a colleague, a guy who had been sort of quite interested in the case to come in as well, who sort of off the record was like, mate, I mean, obviously you haven't said anything to us yet, but her statement is 26 pages. Like, I really, I've really got to hope you never do this to anyone else. And so, I mean, that was comforting to hear. 35:56 And we drove home from dinner past the police station to pick up my copy of the ADVO. Oh, wow. Yeah. 36:03 And then you waited three years to go to trial. Yeah, well, two years and then that whole process just there had been about a year. 36:13 Once a decision to prosecute is made, you are just in a queue. Yeah, right. And my queue was two years long, and that's really short. The people right now, because of COVID, like the backlog... 36:27 I'm one of the lucky ones, which is a crazy thing to say. 36:31 Can you articulate though what that weight is like? Because you still have to live in the knowledge of knowing that you then have to go to court and relive it all again. 36:39 Those two years are the most difficult thing I have ever experienced. It's hard to put words to, oh, I've got like shivers just like now just thinking about it. You are... 36:51 completely suspended in limbo. Your life is on hold. You are a shell of yourself. You are entirely dissociated and you are actively trying to keep the assault front of mind that whole time so that you can give clear testimony. It is crazy. I put off really what would be life-changing therapies because there's You just sneeze and the whole thing gets derailed. Meanwhile, he can literally do anything. But we just didn't want to do anything to derail the case. 37:24 Mm-hmm. 37:25 My whole family were witnesses. I couldn't speak to anyone. About it. Yeah. It was the worst time in my life. I will never get those years back. 37:35 Can you explain that a bit more? Because I don't think people realise. So like obviously you're really close to your mum and dad. You've got siblings and you can't talk to your mum about what happened to you. 37:44 It's like you kind of don't have words for it. 37:47 We were such goody two shoes. Yeah. my mum is like looking about going what were we doing she's like mum and dad didn't even read each other's statements all the things that you were following the book we were so good I was perfect I was the perfect victim like it was oh my god it was so bad it was so bad I don't think I slept for two years. I mean, the one thing I did have was that I was starting with UBCAN. So you started it during those two years? Yeah. By the time of the trial, UBCAN was a public first-of-its-kind resource. 38:24 And I had, in that time... like educated myself about the system. I was so in the know about what to, I knew how many jury members would be in panel, like all these stupid things that no one tells you because they're kind of meaningless, but they mean everything to a victim. I was across it. Like I was like ready, but I was in complete isolation. I had like turned nocturnal. My health was obviously at an all time low. 38:51 everyone was a danger to me i was so scared of anyone who knew anyone who knew someone who might know him and i was also contagious because reporting is social suicide so i had people actively distance themselves from me just as much as i distanced myself from everyone else because i don't know they wanted to go to his house party or whatever it is you know like it's there's so much internalized misogyny and justifying away and cognitive dissonance and people don't want to believe that perpetrators are people that we know and love. 39:23 And like, I didn't want to believe that either. And I wanted to get him help, but I couldn't understand why his friends didn't also want to get him help. 39:32 Tell us what With You We Can is so that people understand. 39:35 With You We Can is a nationally accessible, free to use, online legal education platform and advocacy organisations. So we're a registered charity that works at a national level that aims to demystify the police and legal processes for victims of sexual violence and its alternatives, very much while working to improve those processes. 40:00 That kind of information is quite literally the bare minimum. I couldn't believe that something like With You We Can didn't exist. And I think that's why I had such immense support from the stakeholders that are involved, like cross-sector contribution, academics, advocates, experts, frontline services. 40:19 Police as well, but the police who input into the resource can't be named because it's a conflict of interest to look like you're helping victims of sexual violence. And if that doesn't demonstrate why we need With You We Can, I don't know what does. The advocacy side of it is that It is important to me, but... 40:40 So I was going through the system when the consent laws in New South Wales changed and I was over the moon and I was so excited and I just felt like I owed my life to Saxon Mullins. 40:50 And then at the same time, I was devastated because they didn't apply to me because the law can't be applied retrospectively. So there are people right now, like, yes, we're working on law reform and things are changing slowly, painfully, but they're changing. 41:05 But that's irrelevant to someone right now who is going through a system blindly, who is doing it to the shrill sound of people claiming they've lied, who has no idea about the legal decisions being made about them without them, who is waiting for an unknown number to call just for a tidbit of information about a case that supposedly revolves around them. Like, there are people right now who need help. So that resource in and of itself... 41:31 I feel will always need to exist no matter what law reform advocacy I turn to. 41:37 But it sounds like you were creating this resource knowing that what you'd experienced wasn't okay and you weren't even at trial yet. Could you have foreseen... 41:47 How traumatising the trial could have been. Given that you'd done all the research, could you have foreseen what was going to happen? 41:53 I entered the system with eyes wide open. It was worse than I possibly could have imagined. It was the stuff of nightmares. It is the stuff of my nightmares. But it's like you go out into the real world and it is so incredibly destabilising to have your eyes open and to... 42:12 experience things that you go, oh, that doesn't happen. 42:17 That doesn't happen to me. Like, oh, someone's made a misogynistic comment. That doesn't happen to me. Like you grow up and you're just like, oh, my God, it doesn't matter how educated I am and how much I know that, you know, women have fought to get here and all of the history of things as they are. 42:33 It doesn't matter. Those things still happen. 42:37 And it is so destabilizing. 42:41 when it does. I mean, no one knew what to do when I was assaulted. I was just like, there is no way that I get assaulted. That's not what happens to me. Victims of domestic violence are women with children who are in long-term relationships. It doesn't discriminate when it finds you. And I did not know that. 43:05 Before we get to the trial, 43:07 I want you to tell me about the phone call you got from your doctor that you hadn't seen for many, many years. 43:13 I got a phone call from a doctor I hadn't seen in years asking me what she should do because my medical records had been subpoenaed. 43:24 As if I knew what the fuck to do. And there's also like a level there of we're told to trust people in white coats. So it was really confusing to have an authority figure ask me what to do. Yeah. 43:36 I have a chronic autoimmune disease, and I knew that would be used against me. It was very relevant to the assault itself, as we've spoken about. 43:46 And I didn't know in what way, I didn't know what that would look like, but I knew it would come up somehow, that the defence would want to make an argument about me being unwell. For me, I felt that, you know, Any evidence of my illness just shows how vulnerable and weak physically I was. So I didn't understand. I couldn't foresee the ways it would be twisted to discredit me and the ways that happens all the time. That is completely the norm for complainants. But I received this phone call after two years of begging the prosecution to get on top of my illness. 44:21 Like, again, whatever that looked like. It turns out there's a scheme in New South Wales that sits with legal aid called the Sexual Assault Communications Privilege Scheme, where complainants get an independent lawyer to represent them and challenge access attempts to their medical and counselling histories. 44:41 was too late they'd all been accessed outside of due process and even though it's outside of due process the defense can just claim that oh we didn't know it's a very niche part of the law even though it's the most common thing that is done by defense barristers i love that after all these years the best we still have is that she's crazy because she went to therapy um so i was really i was distraught because of how frustrating it was so then when i did get flicked to that legal aid scheme too late It was like I was a nuisance and the lawyer had to learn my name so quickly and it got to the stage where we had to choose between allowing my privacy to be invaded, keeping in mind it kind of already had been because they'd accessed the documents, but at least they could say, let's not question her on the documents. 45:33 At least they could challenge that aspect of it. 45:36 It got to the point where we had to choose between invading my privacy, like sanctioning that or delaying the trial. And my mum had to intervene. I had to like give her legal authority or whatever it is. And she spoke to the lawyer and just said, stand down, like do not appeal again. Do not object to their objection because you will not have a witness if this trial is delayed anymore. Obviously referring to my mental health by then. 46:09 Let's set up what that room looks like, the trial room, because I don't think people are aware. 46:15 He can have any defence team he wants. He can hire as many people as he needs. He has those years to strategise and prepare. Who do you have in that room? 46:25 Literal years. Literal years. He's flanked by... 46:31 the highest paid QC in the country. He had two lawyers as well, plus they're junior. There's usually barristers and then they're, you know, like in the movies, the people behind doing the groundwork. And the same with The Crown. There's a junior solicitor on the prosecuting team. 46:50 He's flanked by the best lawyers money can buy. He is... 46:55 He has been taught when to look at the jury, when to look bashful, when to look remorseful. He's been taught to bow so low that he woos the judge. 47:07 I walked into that courtroom alone. I met the prosecutor one working day before trial. 47:13 They got handed the brief of evidence one working day before trial. There is no way that they could be across a case enough to prosecute it in that little time. 47:26 You're allowed a support person. My godmother came and she could sit at the back of the courtroom in silence and watch on in horror. Like there is nothing she can do because she can't speak. 47:38 It is, you know, I was pushed through those courtroom doors and they slammed shut behind you and you are literally like you're a sitting duck. It is... Because the prosecutor isn't actually your lawyer, right? 47:50 No. They work for the state. They represent the state. So there's no representation for you. Correct. So no one to intervene. No one to say you can't say that. Yeah. 48:00 The power imbalance is pretty staggering. Most victims, unfortunately, are also learning for the first time at trial that they are unrepresented. I think we think that You know, the supportive prosecuting team, like that's your team of lawyers. No, they have nothing to do with you. They learnt your name yesterday and you're not in their interest, is how it's framed. We talk a lot about interests and interested parties. And you are just a witness to a case that firstly would not exist without you, but also quite literally happened to you so physically, the way you are the physical embodiment of that crime, to be treated as just a prop rather than a valued participant is crazily objectifying and kind of mirrors the the objectifying kind of misogynistic way that a sexual assault unfolds as well. 49:02 So, I mean, start to finish through and through every which angle you look at it, the system is not designed to support the person it's meant to protect. You were cross-examined for days. What was that like? What did they ask you about? I think Nina's done an analysis. I think I was asked like 2,000 questions or something. I had four and a half days of cross-examination. 49:26 with only about an hour or so of evidence in chief. Like, how can you examine me for that long after I've given that little evidence? And there was no break in between the two as well, which was like horrific. 49:40 Yeah. 49:42 So going through trial, I mean, I'd been told to not try and win the trial with every response. Like don't try and, you know, just answer questions clearly. Don't bring up something else. Don't try and fit in bits and bobs as if you even have time to think rationally about that when you're being like annihilated in front of a room full of people. 50:05 But I still... 50:09 Like, it was awful, but I still, you know, was comforted by the fact that the prosecution had said that they were going to go forward with or without me, which is very, very rare. All of that time spent trying to get him help had led to a huge amount of supporting evidence. 50:27 I never really felt like the evidence sat with me. I mean, obviously it does, and technically you are the evidence-in-chief. But there were just... 50:35 There was a long list of witnesses, and I... 50:40 could take comfort in that at least. But I mean, it was awful. My parents were just sitting outside. There was no room for them. His whole family had a private room. My parents were just floating in the lobby, desperate for any update. I would come out, you know, to go and throw up in the bathroom or something. And They can't ask anything. They can't ask anything. I can't even like look at them. I can't because you're accused of colluding. Well, I've seen your mum describe it as watching her daughter getting raped. 51:13 Like that's what it felt like. She says, it's funny that you say that because I haven't heard that in a while and I was thinking about it last night. She said that it was like watching me be raped with her hands tied behind her back. It's a pretty visceral description. Yeah, it is disempowering like isn't a strong enough word. 51:33 He was found not guilty. 51:36 Were you there for the verdict? 51:37 No. 51:39 Were you expecting that verdict? Yes. The verdict was very structurally unsurprising after the trial unfolded in the way that it unfolded. That's another episode. 51:50 But I was in a meeting with the DPP, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, while the verdict was being given. And... 52:02 even though the verdict was obvious. It's funny, I never actually got told it by anyone, which is so inappropriate. Yeah, my friend Nick confirmed it with me weeks later. That's crazy. I've had friends who've been to trial who they wouldn't even wait for them to get to court in time for the verdict. It's just got nothing to do with you. You're just a witness. 52:28 Well, I've seen stats, well, recent stats, Bureau of Statistics stats, only 7% of reports end in a conviction. Yeah, yeah. 52:38 That's minuscule. If you think, though, if we talk about the structural design of a system, if a prosecutor is handed the brief of evidence yesterday and they learnt your name and the rapist's name yesterday, and they're expected to lead a case versus him being prepared for two years, being coached, having a right to silence, all of the things that they are afforded as defendants, it is no wonder that cases are falling over. 53:11 Victims have no rights, but the few procedural protections that we are afforded, which relates to our private records like counselling notes, even those few protections are routinely circumvented without consequence. And so what you're doing is you're putting the victim on trial, like we're prosecuting the victim. He has a right to silence. She's up there talking about why she... 53:40 is making up the assault because her parents got divorced when she was a kid and that's led her to feel like revengeful against men. Like information that has nothing to do with anything and is also not meant to be in the courtroom in front of a jury and then no one's objecting. It's like we're reinforcing rape myths in front of a jury and then like wondering why we have a culture of impunity when they're going out into the world with those myths like reinforced. Like you're in a fancy courtroom, there's a guy in a wig and he's saying that she's a skank so she asked for it. 54:14 And no one says otherwise. What I found refreshing with your advocacy work is you're very clear in the things that you think need to change. And they're big things that you think will make a big difference. One, we've got With You We Can, which is like filling that literacy gap. 54:29 Two, you think having an independent lawyer for a victim is a game changer. 54:35 Are we anywhere close to having that? 54:36 Yeah, we're pretty close. We've got it up and running in a couple of states. How cool is that? It is pretty cool. It already exists in limited forms in New South Wales and Queensland, but we've got three pilots up plus... 54:52 Every other jurisdiction that didn't have a pilot now has one, but so far they're only providing independent legal advice, which is great. But they still, if we can change legislation, they've got the infrastructure to go further and see it through and provide the representation piece. 55:08 Those pilots are also being used to test some of the other Australian Law Reform Commission recommendations like justice navigators, or some of them are looking a bit more into restorative justice. We don't have very clear pathways for that in Australia when we know that a lot of victim survivors would prefer that, but don't even know what it looks like. So I'm trying to plug some holes at the moment by changing legislation so that those pilots can all consistently provide the same thing to help stop the confusion for victims who have no idea what's going on, who are navigating a system completely blindly, but also to help with postcode justice, really. 55:52 Like, it's not fair that some people have X and others don't. 55:57 So yeah, things are... 55:59 are changing and it is slow and it is painful. But I really feel that independent legal representation is the closest to like a panacea reform that we'll get in my lifetime. I mean, until we decide to blow up the system and start again. Yeah, yeah. It really is the big bowling ball that can pick up so many different siloed failures. Like, I mean, our legislation is only as strong as its enforcement mechanisms. And like... 56:25 so much of the problems we see, I mean, a lot of them are just structurally. A lot of the problems with the system are structural, they've been designed that way, but a lot of them are about a lack of enforcement. Like there's legislation that is in place that is not being enforced, that if it were enforced, it would help. 56:45 And independent legal representation is like the through line for me, in my view. 56:50 You've been working on advocacy, working on trying to change the system for, what, four years? Yeah. Did you think you would see such progress four years down the track? There is so much more that needs to be done. But you have managed to help move some major pieces. Did you think you'd see this happen? 57:07 Not even... 57:09 remotely. When I joined the expert advisory group informing the Australian Law Reform Commission's inquiry, which in and of itself is like a once in a generation chance for this to be put on the map, so long as things are implemented and don't, you know, it doesn't just join the shelf gathering dust of all the other royal commissions and inquiries and plans. 57:33 Day one, I saw independent legal representation on a bullet point, on a list, and expanding it out to the things that it has been recommended to be expanded to. 57:50 I just wanted to get them a foot in the courtroom because once they're there, watch the floodgates open. People will see the benefits. We're saving money. We're not destabilising anything. We're not infringing on the rights of the accused. We are actually contributing to the integrity and efficiency of the system. 58:09 I did not think that would happen. I just wanted, I was like, just a foot in the courtroom. And to have that so blatantly and clearly written in a document as, you know, profound as the Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiries report, I, yeah, I burst into tears when I saw it, honestly, which is really lame, but... 58:32 I was tired. 58:34 Sarah, I'm... 58:35 I am so sorry for what happened to you, but I am so thankful for what you're doing now. Like, thank goodness we have people like you helping to, like, change the system. 58:47 Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I think I've got to get better at taking compliments. So I'm trying to do that thing where I look at you and I say thank you. And just nod. And I... 58:57 Instead of going, oh, no, no, no. But, I mean, I really feel like... 59:02 lived experience is the way forward in combination with cross-sector collaboration because, I mean, No one can do this on their own. This is a whole of community problem. It requires all of us. It requires immense collaboration. We probably should mobilize the private sector. The failures aren't just failing victims. It's actually the least of it. This is about society and a civic duty that we all have. So I felt like there's something Saxon Mullen said years ago about her hands were already... 59:35 dirty might as well keep going and I also feel that you know if not me someone else has got to dedicate their life or ruin their life doing this advocacy as well so for now I'm gonna I'm gonna keep keep going fighting the fight um I know that we're getting a little bit closer every day 59:55 To reiterate, Joshua was found not guilty by a jury trial. This is Sarah's truth and Sarah's story. And a big thank you to her for joining us on this episode today. 60:06 You can find out more about With You We Can at the link in our show notes. You can also find a petition to keep counselling confidential, started by journalist and advocate Nina Fennell. Since our interview with Sarah, the New South Wales government has announced a landmark inquiry to determine better ways to protect the counselling records of victim survivors. A report will be issued in June next year. If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It really helps others find the show. Thanks so much for listening. 60:38 I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.