Andrew L. Urban
All Australian jurisdictions have abolished the mandatory requirement for corroboration of claims in sexual crime prosecutions. This means no jurisdiction requires independent evidence to support a complainant’s testimony for a conviction. This has negated the presumption of innocence leading to guilt by say-so, as three examples demonstrate.
Woken by her phone ringing, Maris Valentine answered wearily: “Hello…” The caller was Detective Sergeant Tim Paul. He was standing outside her door, accompanied by two other police on the NSW Strike Force Bilvo and three Queensland police in full gear. It was unnecessarily heavy handed and the 10,000 or so residents of beautiful Queensland seaside suburb of Redcliffe had never seen anything like it. The median age is 44. That is seven years older than the median age of the population of Australia, a suitable spot to retire in peace, thought the Valentines.
The raid was both the symbolic and the real invasion of the life of the Valentine family by the forces of law and order. It was also symbolic of the callousness of the system. None of the attending police officers even offered to wait for the Valentines, Maris and Frank, to get dressed.
Valentine was 78 at his 2019 trial and in his 30s at the time of the sexual assault claims against him, between 1971 – 1974.
Serious crimes deserve serious punishment. But the accused also deserve serious safeguards built into the criminal justice system. Historical child sex abuse allegations, serious indeed, should not be exempt. If anything, such allegations must be scrutinised even more closely, without prejudice to claimant or accused. By their very nature, such allegations pit unreliable long term memories against each other. Reasonable doubt is a constant shadow.
Guilt by allegation is so persuasive that the presumption of innocence is trampled. In my book Presumption of Evil (Independent), about the case of Noel Greenaway, I show that almost the entire legal system participates in reversing the burden of proof in many cases, but especially so in historical sexual assault cases.
To some extent this arises when the homily ‘there is no smoke without fire’ is transformed into a moral imperative. The complaint is the smoke – AND the fire.
Such crimes have become crimen exceptum – crimes so exceptional that the established rules of justice need not be applied to them. That is an indefensible notion in conflict with the rule of law.
Of course, sexual assault is viewed with extreme prejudice by the community, especially if it involves minors. And rightly so. But the presumption of innocence is a fundamental pillar of the rule of law. How have we allowed it to be sidelined?
Along with the mandatory requirement, also abolished was the need for judges to issue warnings to juries (and themselves); not just abolished but prohibited. So judges cannot warn juries that the claims are uncorroborated. This process began in 1980 and spread throughout all jurisdictions. The call to believe all women (almost all complainants) has been given legal standing, men’s rights swept away. That should read ‘the rule of law swept away’.
These reforms occurred in waves (early 1980s in NSW, Vic, NT, WA; late 1980s/1990s elsewhere), driven by feminist advocacy, law reform commissions, and recognition that sexual offences often lack independent witnesses.
No jurisdiction requires corroboration as a matter of law today; a conviction can rest on the complainant’s evidence alone if the jury/judge alone is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.*
Some jurisdictions retain discretionary judicial comment on evidence (e.g., if delay in complaint or other factors raise specific risks), but not mandatory “class-based” warnings treating complainants as inherently unreliable.
Later reforms (2000s–2020s) in many jurisdictions further restricted or banned related directions (e.g., on delay in complaint or multiple charges).
*Beyond reasonable doubt is the legal requirement, but as we see for example in the case of Frank Valentine, tried by a single judge alone, beyond reasonable doubt is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. At his appeal, judge Nicole Noman SC DCJ was repeatedly shown to have made several serious errors in the reasoning behind her guilty verdict. Scandalously, the appeal judges dismissed the appeal. See our report.
Valentine’s trial came after the trial of Noel Greenaway and well after the trial of the man we call Paul (not his real name). In each of these three cases, the onus of proof was reversed.
All three men had been accused of historical sexual assault of a minor. All three vehemently denied the accusations and their trials did nothing to persuade an independent observer of their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
There is evidence in the police brief that clears him, Paul claims, and examples of accusations about abuse taking place in a room that didn’t exist at the relevant time. Paul appealed. In the Court of Criminal Appeal, Adams JA said: “… the evidence of the Complainant … was not so persuasive as to dispel the significant doubts raised by a number of seeming implausibilities and inconsistencies…” yet went on to dismiss the appeal. It is worth noting that the claimant’s mother does not believe the claimant’s allegations and supports her husband.
For further details, please refer to the case menu at right.
witch trials 1560 – 1692 … Australian sexual crimes trials 1980 – 2025
Reversing the onus of proof takes us back to the witch trials. A time when accusations easily morphed into convictions driven by the mob. A time when innocent women could suffer miserably once denounced as ‘witches’; the exhortation then was “believe all accusers.”
The elevation of say-so testimony to the level of concrete evidence not only reverses the onus of proof but places the assumption of guilt above the assumption of innocence. That’s the ignorance-fed mob rule that drove the medieval ‘witch hunt’.