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Justice for Men & Boys 
As readers of J4MB will recall the focus of this conference:
“As I have explained, right now 400 current sexual assault cases are being audited by NSW public prosecutors to determine whether, as 6 judges have claimed, such cases are being pushed through to trial with insufficient evidence.”
Is precisely the same issue that caused a furor here in the UK 2017/18 Where the Ministry of Justice, a whistle blowing Barrister acting for the CPS, the Criminal Bar Association and even a documentary by the BBC all agreed 25% of convictions in the previous 5 years were “unsound” because of the Police and CPS conspiring to conceal evidence from the Court (and thereby the defense) as they pushed through cases. Here, as in Australia the catalyst was Judges either halting trials or issuing scathing reprimands to the CPS and or the Police. Linked to the collapse of the “Nick” historical abuse investigations and “believe” there was an all to brief outbreak of principle in our system. What was generally dodged was the obvious fact that if the Police and CPS are given targets to increase cases going to court then they are under pressure to take cases, however flimsy, to court appearance. Of course this reestablishment of principals (due process, innocent until proven guilty, fair trial) immediately caused a feminist backlash to reinstate the idea of “believe” and a presumption of guilt. Very evident in the Westminster, Edinburgh and Welsh Parliaments as they brought in legislation to further limit the defense evidence that is allowed, prevent the Police looking at social media texts etc., get the “gendered definition” written into abuse and harassment legislation and actually abolish the right to trial by Jury in Scotland.
It is a “men’s rights” issue as these attacks of fundamental principles of justice affect males disproportionately but of course they are also attacks on fundamental rights for all. For in how many other things would it be more “convenient” if the Crown (state) didn’t have to bother and simply assured the conviction and imprisonment without a process that tested the case “beyond reasonable doubt”?
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Amongst those critical of both the Police and Crown Prosecution Service was the Chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Angela Rafferty. In response she pushed for a review of cases. She commissioned other research beyond the actions of the Police or CPS of holding evidence back from the court . In this, about the legal provision which prevents the defense presenting evidence of the complainants sexual behavior history, but does alow the prosecution to present evidence about the defendant, one finds the “smoking gun” that points to the CPS having internal guidance to prevent such evidence reach the court or if told to present it do so at the minimum. https://crimeline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/s41report.pdf
The report is long and detailed but contains at 131 “The Northumberland
Report recommends that “[the] CPS ensure that prosecuting counsel robustly oppose all
applications for the admission of section 41 material and if an application succeeds, further
seek to limit the ambit and quantity of such material to the minimum” (emphasis
added). This is contrary to all of the ethical and constitutional obligations of prosecuting
counsel. Parliament in enacting section 41 did contemplate that sexual behaviour
evidence could be relevant, admissible and necessary for a safe verdict. If an application
is clearly warranted and admissible through one of the four gateways in section 41, then
it would be ethically wholly improper for prosecuting counsel to oppose the application”
In other words the CPS issued instructions based on a Report which is feminist “advocacy research” produced by the feminist pressure groups. By contrast the CBA research included the experience of male complainants (victims), of which there were in fact a substantial proportion. I bring this up because overall the Ministry of Justice and CBA estimated that 25% of convictions for such sexual assault crimes were “unsound” due to various shenanigans about evidence. Generally the public “culprit” was “lack of resources” but in reality the “believe” mantra and CPS policy combined with pressure to get the number of convictions up pushed this. Unsurprisingly in subsequent years the number of cases going to trial fell by …. you guessed it 25%. Which then fired a continuing clamor in Parliament and the media to get the figures up by…….. you guessed it again fiddling with the evidence; this time making it much harder for the Police to obtain phone/social media evidence!
It is interesting the the CBA Barristers (who have prosecuted and defended) agreed that the existing law then was too restrictive for a fair trial and this had been slightly ameliorated by the Court (Judges) taking into account the Human Rights of the defendant for a fair trial.
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