The woman's ex-partner claimed she had fallen down the stairs. The woman, given the pseudonym Sarah Martin by a court order, took her two children and left her partner in May 2009 after escalating conflict. “I walked out, pram, kids in pram, one bag with nappies and a few clothes and just left,” she said. The then-23-year-old moved in with her mother in Yarra Glen, a few-hundred metres from where her ex-partner lived. Two weeks later she went to her ex's house to discuss custody issues, where Ms Martin said he assaulted and raped her. When she woke she believed she was 10 or 12 years old.

Worried when she didn’t come home that night, her family went round the next day and found Ms Martin passed out in a bed. “We pulled back the doona in the master bedroom and [she] was lying there unconscious. Black and blue everywhere,” her father, a former policeman, said. With the ex-boyfriend at work, Ms Martin's family called triple zero. Uniformed police went to the house and, according to police documents, noted: “Fading in and out of consciousness, suffering from 2 x black eyes, multiple bruising to pelvis, arms, etc, offender presumed at this stage to be ex-partner.” She was taken to The Alfred hospital. Her injuries included severe bruising to her face, a closed-head injury, an intracranial haemorrhage, a compression fracture to her spine and bruising across her neck.

“She didn’t remember that much about it,” her father said. “When she first woke up she thought she was 10 or 12 and was talking about her mother playing netball.” Detective Senior Constable Ross Bingley was assigned to the case but Ms Martin’s father said there were problems from the start. In the claim before the court, Ms Martin’s lawyers from Robinson Gill said a forensic rape test wasn’t carried out despite her family’s insistence, though her other injuries were documented and photographed. Victoria Police said in its defence that Ms Martin couldn’t give adequate consent for the rape test. Her father said Ms Martin’s ex-boyfriend deleted messages from her phone on the night of the alleged assault. The father said he urged the detective to forensically examine her phone, but that didn’t occur. Police denied that allegation.

Police took two years to press charges. Another police officer spoke to her ex-partner soon after and he claimed he had consensual sex with Ms Martin and later found her unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. Detective Senior Constable Bingley didn’t meet and take a statement from Ms Martin until August 2010, more than a year after the assault. By this time, the officer had already completed a brief of evidence and recommended charges shouldn’t be laid as there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction. Police claimed that because Ms Martin couldn’t say how she was injured, she couldn’t dispute her ex-partner’s claim that she had fallen down the stairs.

Detective Senior Constable Bingley submitted: “I strongly believe [the ex-partner] has physically assaulted Ms Martin, rather than her falling down the steps. If she is able to recall what occurred, I still believe it would be very difficult to prove he assaulted her.” Ms Martin’s lawyers alleged she tried to contact the detective multiple times following the incident before she made a complaint and her statement was taken in August 2010. Ms Martin’s former boyfriend was charged and acquitted of the major allegations after a 2014 trial. He was, however, convicted and sentenced to a community corrections order over a previous assault that had been witnessed by their children. The police professional standards investigation substantiated Ms Martin’s complaint and Detective Senior Constable Bingley pleaded guilty to a disciplinary offence. He was transferred to another station, placed on a good behaviour bond and ordered to pay a $2000 fine to White Ribbon. Ms Martin said she was suing for loss and damages to right a wrong.