Mobiles in the dock

"Prosecutors must always act in the interests of justice and not solely for the purpose of obtaining a conviction."

"It is fundamentally important that all police officers recognise both that they are searching for the truth and that they have core disclosure duties which are central to the criminal justice process."

The key issue in the battle over disclosure is privacy, with the feminists arguing that it violates a complainant's privacy to demand her phone correspondence. Whilst acknowledging this is important the Select Committee stated that this factor was trumped by other considerations: "The law is clear in that the right to a fair trial is an absolute right which cannot be violated to protect the right to privacy," they said, putting the onus on the prosecutors to actively address disclosure issues.

Along came a new DPP, Max Hill, who made it clear whose side he was on in his first public speech. "Rape complainants must have their personal privacy, including mobile phone records, protected," he said. He showed the feminists that he was their man, and the sound work of the Select Committee went down the gurgler.

According to Bradford, the disclosure issue then dropped from the public agenda and feminists were soon on the march demanding rape prosecution decisions be taken out of the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service. Boris Johnson responded by promising targets on the police to refer more "high quality" rape cases.

Here's Bradford: "And how, exactly, are the police supposed to improve the 'quality' of rape cases? Well, that's simple. They try hard to build a prosecution case, but they put no effort into finding exculpatory evidence. In other words, they revert to the negligent practices which led to the debacles of the recent past – disclosure failures."

The ultimate irony is DDP Hill has now launched Operation Soteria – in Greek mythology, Soteria was the goddess of safety and deliverance from harm. But Hill's deliverance works only one way. He's requiring police to work with the DPP to "build the best possible cases more quickly…to drive up the number of successful prosecutions."

Last year I quoted the prominent Sydney silk, Margaret Cunneen, a former Crown Prosecutor, speaking at The Presumption of Guilt Conference run by the Rule of Law Education Centre. She revealed that Australian police are now required to refer to complainants as "victims" and treat them accordingly, pushing all cases through to trial. "There's not much more investigation that goes on. There's a zeal to get to the end and convict the charged person."

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller reinforced this point when he said, "As police, our primary role is to support victims who courageously come forward to police to report sexual assault." Nothing about the right to a fair trial. No mention of the search for the truth.

In our courts, the consequences are clear. Just before Xmas, a jury acquitted a young man in a retrial of a sexual assault case which had cost a Sydney family six years of their lives and over $650,000 in legal fees. The family is now suing the NSW police for gross negligence over withholding phone evidence that ultimately contributed to their son's acquittal.

It all started in 2016 when their son – I'll call him "Michael" – was at a boozy party on NSW's Central Coast. Most of the young people present were totally wasted after a long night of drinking and drugs. Suddenly a girl jumped up from the couch where she had been spooning with Michael, and claimed she had woken up to find his fingers in her vagina. She later made a further accusation about him doing a similar thing three years earlier at another party, yet they'd remained good friends in the interim.

Three years later the case was decided. Michael was found guilty of sexual assault. A sympathetic judge sentenced him to 450 hours community service, taking into account his history of depression. But this young bloke had become a convicted felon, listed on the sex offender register and marked for life.