Chief prosecutor surrenders

It is utterly appalling that this serial complainant is still out there, having experienced no consequences whatsoever for her abhorrent behaviour, free to make further complaints to destroy the lives of other men. Her repeated allegations prove she was not deterred from further indulging in this evil misuse of our justice system, made worse by the fact that the criminal court system is clogged with a backlog of genuine cases. Martinez is one of many who has spent months in prison on remand, awaiting a trial which, as it has turned out, was based on a mistaken interpretation of the law.

Newlinds rightly goes to town on the utter madness of the jury being denied knowledge of this complainant's history. The judge tried to get the prosecutor to pull the plug on what he described as a "hopeless" case early in the trial, but the prosecutor made it clear that only the DPP had the power to discontinue.

It's alarming listening to The Wigs' discussion of the way the system is operating, with prosecutors being required to run even the most feeble of cases, ignoring even strong exculpatory evidence. During the Sofronoff inquiry, we saw how in the ACT the decision to charge a man with sexual assault no longer requires "a reasonable prospect of conviction," a test applied throughout the common law world. Instead, the complainant's statement alone is sufficient evidence, according to Crown Prosecutor Sky Jerome, who is a major player in the feminist committees pushing through these changes in the decision to charge.

Last year I wrote about a Chinese PhD student – I'll call him "Andrew" – who wrote to me in despair when he discovered he'd been charged with sexual assault. This was a classic unmeritorious case involving a Chinese student who openly threatened to cry rape if Andrew refused to resume their relationship – she'd broken up with him seeking a higher status partner and then wished to return.

The jury was shown the extraordinary phone chat messages where she made these threats:

I have just called the police because you keep ignoring me.

I just think you treated me very badly, that's why I'm causing big troubles.

Even after she has him charged, for the next 18 months she kept pleading for sex:

Wanna hook up?

Let's hook up please I'm begging you

She even sent him what she described as a 'sexy photograph' of her naked body and asked whether he had 'jerked off' over it. And so it went on…

In between the barrage of sexy messages, she repeatedly called police and suspended the investigation, only to reinitiate it when Andrew consistently failed to respond to her enticements.

The phone evidence and her bizarre court appearances were so unconvincing that the prosecutor openly confessed to defence lawyers that "we all know she is lying", but made it clear it wasn't possible for him to convince his bosses that the case should be dropped.

Everyone expected Andrew would be acquitted but last December the jury ended up convicting him on one of two virtually identical charges - even after the judge had advised them this was not appropriate.