'The delay and uncertainty in this matter was unacceptable'

The New South Wales Government has called for a review of the state's sexual consent laws following ABC's Four Corners investigation into a controversial sexual assault case.



Monday night's program saw Saxon Mullins, the young woman in the centre of a high-profile Sydney rape case, waive her anonymity and recount the harrowing incident that lead to a five-year legal battle.



Luke Lazarus was found not guilty of sexual assault, despite a jury and two judges finding that 18-year-old Mullins had not consented to sex with him in a Kings Cross alleyway outside his father's nightclub in May, 2013.



Lazarus said he had sex with Mullins but that it had been consensual.



Mullins was a teenage virgin when she met Sydney private school boy Lazarus, then 21 years old, on her first night out to the nightclub district with her friend.



"No-one dreams of their first time being in an alleyway with someone whose name they can’t even remember. No-one wants that," she told ABC journalist Louise Milligan on Monday night.

Saxon Mullins shares her story on ABC's 'Four Corners'. (ABC)

The pair met on the dancefloor of Soho nightclub, and within minutes, Lazarus was captured on CCTV footage leading Mullins outside to an alleyway.



Lazarus was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison, however a judge overturned that decision in the first appeal.



During her testimony Mullins said that after she tried to leave to return to her friends, Lazarus told her to "put her fucking hands on the wall" and "get on [her] hands and knees". He then tried to have sex with her vaginally but stopped because she was too "tight" and had sex with her anally.



Lazarus did not dispute that the encounter happened, but says that the woman gave consent. He denied she asked him to stop, while she maintained she did.



In the first appeal, Judge Robyn Tupman found that Lazarus had no reasonable basis for believing Mullins had not given her consent, but that Mullins, in her own mind, had not consented.



"Whether or not she consented is but one matter. Whether or not the accused knew that she was not consenting is another matter," Tupman said.



In the second appeal in November 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeal found that while the judge in the second trial erred, Lazarus -- who had already served 11 months following the first criminal trial -- would not be retried because it would be unfair to put him through a third trial.



Mullins' story sparked further national debate around the issue of consent following Monday night's program, prompting New South Wales Attorney-General Mark Speakman to refer the laws of sexual consent to the Law Reform Commission.

"[Saxon Mullins has] been humiliated in an alleyway at the age of 18, she's had to tell her traumatic story in court, she's had to face two trials, two appeals, and still, no final outcome," Speakman said.



"From her viewpoint, the whole process has been, I imagine, just a huge disappointment.



"What this shows is that there's a real question about whether our law in New South Wales is clear enough, is certain enough, is fair enough. That's why I've asked the Law Reform Commission to look at the whole question of consent in sexual assault trials."



Speakman praised Mullins' courage in coming forward and speaking out about her ordeal.



"This young woman's bravery in coming forward and sharing her story is commendable," he said. "The delay and uncertainty in this matter was unacceptable."



Following his announcement on Tuesday morning, Speakman appeared on Nine’s TODAY Show.



"[Sexual assault] is an area of the law fraught with difficulties of proving a crime has occurred," he told host Georgie Gardner.



"There is dramatic underreporting of sexual assault in Australia," he continued. "We estimate in New South Wales that only one in 10 cases get reported and of the cases that get reported ultimately only 10 per cent lead to conviction."

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