An Australian man who was accused of rape by an ex-partner will have to go through a second trial after jurors couldn’t come to a decision on one of the charges against him. The same jury acquitted him on three other charges, but could not reach a verdict on another charge, resulting in another trial.
The man was not allowed to tell jurors that the woman who has accused him has made numerous other false accusations in the past, The Australian reported.
“These included telling friends she had been sexually assaulted and gang raped. She also claimed a man had raped her with an unknown object, asking a friend to take her to hospital for treatment for internal injuries. However, the woman later admitted she had lied — there was no rape and no offender. She subsequently pleaded guilty to making a false complaint to police,” the outlet wrote.
Neither party has been named, so The Daily Wire has referred to them as John Doe and Jane Roe.
The Daily Wire previously reported more on the woman’s extensive history of false accusations:
The first allegation, according to a summary of evidence provided to the court by John, states that in 2001, Jane told a friend and a school “notifier” that she had been sexually assaulted. When the notifier asked for more information, Jane allegedly “giggled and walked away.” That same year, she told another friend that her ex-boyfriend would rape her and beat her. She apparently changed the name of this alleged ex-boyfriend from Clint to Tim. Jane told this same friend at another point that she had been “gang raped.” Yet again in 2001, Jane wrote notes to two other schoolgirls saying that she had been raped and beaten the night before. Her mother confirmed that Jane had been home all evening so the attack couldn’t have happened.
When the school notifier tried to get Jane to go to the police, she denied ever making the accusations. The notifier showed her one of the notes she had written, Jane allegedly said, “Oh, didn’t happen that way.” Jane then claimed the man who raped her was from a different school, but when the notifier checked, they found no person with the name Jane gave or anything similar.
Jane also made several allegations in 2002, according to John. In a letter to one of her school friends, Jane claimed men named Daniel and Leon had attacked and raped her. She then changed Leon’s name to something else. Her friend didn’t think the allegation was true since Jane’s story kept changing and didn’t make sense. Also in 2002, Jane told another person that someone named Craig or a similar name had “bashed her up and stuff,” possibly alluding to sexual violence. Later in 2002, Jane told police that her boss (the man she falsely referred to as “Leon” earlier in the year) had raped her multiple times. Police investigated and found multiple inconsistencies in Jane’s story, and her mother said Jane didn’t even work for the man at the time. Jane told police she had never made false accusations before.
During the investigation into her former boss, Jane told police that multiple boys had sex with her in primary school.
The final two entries on John’s list of evidence are the most brazen. In 2002, Jane fabricated a letter against her former boss and other men from a non-existent law firm. Police figured out quickly that it was fake, and Jane admitted that it was “all made up.”
Fast forward to 2009. Jane told police that a man named “Leon” forced open her security door to get inside her home around 1 a.m., chased her around the house, hit her, and raped her with an object. Jane eventually pleaded guilty to making up the false claim, admitting “Leon” was a client.
Despite this history, the court previously ruled that John couldn’t submit evidence of the woman’s past lies due to the exclusionary rule in section 293 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986, which states that evidence “that discloses or implies (a) that the complainant has or may have had sexual experience or a lack of sexual experience, or (b) has or may have taken part or not taken part in any sexual activity, is inadmissible.”
A judge claimed Jane’s past lies were about her sexual history, or lack thereof, which was inadmissible in court.
As The Australian reported, legal experts and judges have called for the law to be changed due to cases like John’s.