In 2020 artist Anthony Lister’s home was raided by a 23-man task force – including police armed with sub machine guns – who had come to arrest him for sexual assault. They broke down his door before carting him off to the police station to confront hordes of media salivating over this latest #MeToo salvo. The press were given access to photos of him being locked up. But several complainants were confronted with proof that their version of events was untrue, “in devastating cross-examination by Margaret Cunneen SC” reports BETTINA ARNDT.
Arndt continues: ‘The one-eyed journalists – from the ABC, The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), The Guardian and the like – crusaded against a suppression order which was imposed to protect Lister’s identity, long after the news of his arrest had been broadcast worldwide. Eventually that suppression order was lifted but the judge, Michael John King, took the very unusual step of commenting on the unbalanced coverage of the case, which failed to include all Lister’s acquittals in earlier trials. He mentioned he was so disappointed in the SMH that he had just cancelled his subscription!
“Astoundingly, SMH journalist, Clare Sibthorpe, said in court she wasn’t interested in covering the verdict if Lister was acquitted. And sure enough, the paper has refused to publish the fact that the jury ultimately threw it all out,” Arndt reports.
“His arrest was the result of a coordinated campaign by young women determined to take him down. The charges ranged from touching a breast, to throwing a woman across the room and violently raping her. All of these accusations were ultimately discredited in court and dismissed by two juries.
“Late last year a Sydney jury took only a few minutes to throw out the last of these allegations – but that decision has, unsurprisingly, been ignored by our mainstream media. The very same media which, anticipating a conviction, had published story after story reporting in salacious detail the allegations these women were making.
“The witch-hunt resulted in 5 years of hell for Lister and his family. He was arrested 15 times and spent 83 days in prison. His exhibitions were attacked and closed down, his art defaced, he was debanked by two banking institutions, photographers stalked him everywhere he went. His private address was published on social media, death threats posted on his front door. A shop even promoted a “Kill your local Lister” tattoo.”