Getting away with RAPE
Georgie Dent speaks to victims of the “mistake of fact” defence and the women fighting for the LAW TO BE ABOLISHED
Saxon Mullins was just 18 when she caught a train down to Sydney from the Central Coast with a friend for a night out in 2013. It was their first night out in what was then the notorious, pumping nightclub district of Kings Cross. About 4am she met Luke Lazarus on the dancefloor of the popular Soho club. He said his family co-owned the club, showed her a card to prove it and said he was taking her to a VIP area. Instead, he led her downstairs, out of the premises, to a dark laneway.
They kissed, but Mullins said she wanted to go back to her friend. He ignored her. She tried to move away and he pulled her back and tore down her stockings and underwear. She yanked them back up, insisting that she had to go. He swore at her and instructed her to place her hands on the wall. Terrified, she obeyed. Shortly afterwards she was on her hands and knees in the gravel and he was having anal sex with her. Mullins was a virgin. From her perspective, there was never any question that what happened that acknowledges that Lazarus was acquitted of all charges and has expressed his remorse and sadness over the events that transpired.
