A Four Corners report aired on the ABC last week, detailing the Kings Cross rape trial involving then 18-year-old Saxon Mullins, who accused Luke Lazarus of having anal sex with her without her consent in an alleyway outside a Sydney club owned by his father in 2015. The report details the incident and the subsequent court proceedings and ongoing trauma it has caused for Mullins and her family.
Lazarus refused to participate in the program and on Thursday, broke his silence on Sydney’s 2GB radio.
Lazarus was unhappy with the media reporting of the case. He claims the program “purposefully did not present the facts the way the judge found them”, painting him as a “guilty man getting away with the crime”.
The program was a tough watch. It was hard to hear Mullins’ painful account of the incident and the aftermath – and it was uncomfortable listening to Lazarus defend his part in it on Ben Fordham’s 2GB show.
Saxon Mullins says we need to teach people that a simple conversation is all it takes to know that you have #consent. #4Corners pic.twitter.com/ux4N6XnBcU
— 4corners (@4corners) May 7, 2018
Lazarus was initially convicted and served five months, before being acquitted of all charges following an appeal. But, as was later decided by the Crown, that judge had failed to properly consider the steps Lazarus had taken to understand whether Saxon was consenting.
However, “in the interests of justice”, the appeal judges decided it would be oppressive and unfair to trial Lazarus for the third time.
After five years of physical and emotional trauma and a rollercoaster of legal back and forth, Mullins waived her right to anonymity to speak to the ABC. She hoped her story would spark a national conversation regarding the notion of enthusiastic consent.
“Enthusiastic consent is really easy to determine and I think if you don’t have that, then you’re not good to go,” she explained on the program. “All you need to say is, ‘Do you want to be here?’ And very clearly, ‘Do you want to have sex with me?’ and if it’s not an enthusiastic ‘yes’, then it’s not enough. If it’s not an enthusiastic ‘yes’, it’s a ‘no’. That’s it.”
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In light of the Four Corners report, the New South Wales attorney-general announced he would be raising the case with the Law Reform Commission. He will request a review into how the question of consent is approached and interpreted within sexual assault trials. He invites the public to contribute to the review (submissions are accepted until June 29 and submissions can be made here).
Lazarus had the opportunity to give his side of the story alongside Mullins’, but declined to participate in the program. Now, he’s decided it’s appropriate to add his perspective to Mullins’ (or “the complainant”, as he frequently refers to her) but chose to undermine her powerful call for a shift in how we think about consent both legally and socially.
Lazarus gave his two cents on the potential for a change in the law. “I think that whoever ends up making this decision will need to just be very careful … because obviously there will be many times when there is nothing spoken between two people, it might just be physical and then it might be hard to delineate between what is consent and what is enthusiastic consent,” he told Fordham.
“So I think just a bit of care needs to be taken if the laws do change.”
He’s offered a sort of apology to Mullins, saying he’s “sorry” and “remorseful”. He continued, “I feel terrible for what she has been through [and] for the pain she has had to endure. It’s terrible, to hear she’s in that pain is really upsetting.”
But he also referred to “convincing” her to stay in the alley after she expressed a wish to leave, and to her appearing to “participate” in their encounter, leading him to believe she was consenting. What Mullins is saying now is that enthusiastically consenting – really wanting to be there, not just relenting and going along with it – is not too high a bar to ask for, to dispel any ambiguity.
If Lazarus is truly, genuinely sorry for what happened, how can he not support her call for a national conversation surrounding enthusiastic consent? If he truly, genuinely regrets the hurt caused to Mullins, how can he not be on board with any movement to improve the social and legal frameworks around how we establish sexual consent?
The state of the current consent laws in New South Wales worked in his favour. But the ambiguity around what constitutes consent has caused a world of trauma for Mullins and, according to his defence case, Lazarus himself.
In spite of his apology, it seems Lazarus is eager to chip in and offer his definition of what could constitute consent within the grey areas. In spite of his professed remorse, his first public statements after the Four Corners program aired seem to support maintaining the legal ambiguity that currently exists, instead of supporting a social and cultural conversation that could have spared Mullins the pain he says he regrets, had we had it five years ago.
Surely he of all people would be keen to ensure future questions of consent are more black and white.
If this story raises any issues for you, or you just need to talk to someone, you can call the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence helpline on 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), Mensline on 1800 600 636, or Lifeline on 13 11 14. They’re all free and confidential, and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.