Coitus interruptus

In fact, the whole ghastly business was a set-up, with Ibb's wife arranging for her best friend to have sex with him and then revoking consent – to get him charged with rape and sent to prison, so that she could get hold of the marital home. It worked a treat - Ibbs ended up in jail. Eventually his conviction was quashed, he was acquitted and the two women were briefly imprisoned. However, by then Ibbs had lost his reputation, his business, all his assets and, eventually, his life – he committed suicide some years later.

So how did the woman in this case revoke consent? By announcing very late in the proceedings that it was "not right" because Ibbs' wife was her best friend. Get a load of this – Ibbs had already stopped once, to get the complainant to confirm with his wife that she was OK with the sexual encounter. It was, so they got back into it and then the accuser waited until he was highly aroused before complaining it was not right. In no way was this a clear statement that she was withdrawing consent. Yet the judges fluffed around with all sorts of pronouncements about the "reasonableness" of the 30 seconds he continued in the saddle, arguing about whether Ibbs response should have been "nearly instantaneous." To my mind the whole thing was both unscientific and egregiously unfair.

With affirmative consent laws only recently put in place and sexual consent courses teaching girls that they have the right to withdraw consent at any time, we can expect to see many more such cases. It's abundantly clear that this entire system is designed simply to nail men – which means there are very different rules for women and men.

Like - women freeze but men don't. Crabtree mentions a NSW case involving a clearly manipulative 16-year-old who admitted to using sexual texting to bully the defendant, JP, before accusing him of sexual assault. The incident took place in a cramped car, where she withdrew consent while lying on top of him. JP explained that when she suddenly said "no", he "froze"… "I basically lost control, went into a lost mind". As she was on top, he could not withdraw.

Crabtree explains that from an ergonomic point of view, it's unlikely JP would have had the strength or room to lift the girl off him in order to withdraw his penis. JP said he did not want to "grab" her to try to remove her as he was worried about her seeing it as assault.

In the end this young man was lucky. His excellent silk, Margaret Cunneen SC convinced the jury to acquit him. But many accused men aren't so fortunate.

Crabtree makes a strong case that HFE investigations should be informing the court, just as this science plays a role in determining responsibility in plane crashes and other incidents. "The most important proven principle of HFE investigations is not to jump to conclusions particularly of blame or culpability. HFE demonstrates that an approach that combines sound investigative process and proper support for victims/complainants can co-exist with the presumption of innocence and the right to due process. The science has shown us that this approach combined with better understanding and education leads to better outcomes."

Better, fairer outcomes, no doubt. But in the current climate the goal appears to be to simply obtain more rape convictions. So, hang the science, unless, of course, it can be used to ensure more "victims" come out on top.