Faked admission of a rape that didn’t happen
A Sydney judge ruled a rape complainant used a rehearsed script to manipulate the accused into an apology he did not believe. The charges were then dropped.
11 February 2024
Stories
230 stories
What if the police and prosecution were told to ‘believe all victims of false allegations’?
A Bristol criminologist inverts the instruction: if police and prosecutors had to believe every claimed victim of a false allegation, would they accept it?
22 January 2024
Sexual abuse – or justice abused? A priest’s tale
Fr Gordon MacRae's own account of the New Hampshire investigation, the plea deals he refused and the 1994 trial that left him serving 33½ to 67 years.
8 January 2024
False rape allegations aren’t so rare
The much-quoted 5 per cent figure comes from a meta-analysis that excluded whole categories of cases. Two Australian researchers put the real rate above 10 per cent.
21 October 2023
Cheerleading coach acquitted of sexually assaulting girls
An Adelaide cheerleading coach who had been accused of sexually assaulting girls at a club is acquitted of all charges, after a judge finds the complainants were "not credible or reliable".
29 September 2023
Russell Brand investigation: what good journalists should have to go through to report sexual assault allegations
An expert on media law explains how newspapers avoid defamation when investigating a story.
20 September 2023
Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying false memories: misinformation, distortion or erroneous configuration?
A review of the cognitive and neural mechanisms behind false memories: misinformation, distortion and erroneous configuration.
7 September 2023
Review body may help establish other wrongful conviction cases, professor says
A law professor hopes an independent commission aimed at dealing with cases of wrongful conviction will stop cases like Alan Hall's taking decades to rectify.
19 August 2023
Special Report – Prosecutors ‘straining impermissibly for a conviction’: eight examples
Eight Australian cases in which judges, lawyers and legal academics say prosecutors strained impermissibly for a conviction — from Gordon Wood to Shane Drumgold.
4 August 2023
Kevin Spacey has been found not guilty of sexual assault, but will his career recover?
Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has been cleared of multiple sexual assault charges. Some say he faces an uphill struggle to return to his previous position as a top-ranking star.
27 July 2023