The woman who was at the centre of the highly-publicised Luke Lazarus case has waived her right to anonymity in an interview with Four Corners, set to air on Monday night.
Saxon Mullins was 18 when, five years ago this week, she met a 21-year-old boy named Luke Lazarus at a Kings Cross nightclub part-owned by his father.
They met on the dance floor and after just four minutes together, Lazarus took her to a lane way behind the club. She told him she wanted to go back almost immediately, the now 23-year-old said in Monday night’s interview.
“And he was like, ‘No, it’s fine’, and I went to move away and he kind of pulled me back and pulled my stockings and my underwear down. So, I pulled them back up and I said, ‘No I really have to go now’.
“He said, ‘Put your fucking hands on the wall’. And… so I did.”
It was the first time she had ever had sex.
“I didn’t know him. And you know, the few things he said to me before we went outside were just nice, calm, normal things and then all of a sudden, after I tried to leave it was, ‘Put your fucking hands on the wall’, it wasn’t, ‘No, please, stay with me’.
“My heart was going at a million miles an hour, I don’t even think I was breathing for a majority of the time. I don’t even know how to describe it,” she said.
There, in that alley way, Luke Lazarus and Saxon Mullins had anal sex; sex she claims, five years on, was not consensual.
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I watched the Four Corners report last nigh with a heavy heart. This case so exemplifies the objectification of women. This man saw this young woman as nothing but an orifice to satisfy him. Any orifice would do. His perception of her as a human being was zero. He lied to her to lure her to an isolated spot where he could perform his despicable act undetected. Disgusting. I do wonder what role porn plays in this kind of thinking among men.
I have struggled with this case. In my view, the legal concept of "consent" has been completely misapplied and improperly interpreted. Crimes Act NSW s61H(3) says that there is no consent if the perpetrator is reckless as to whether the other person consents (yep, I'd say he pretty much ignored her saying no) and has no reasonable grounds for believing the other person consented (taking a girl's virginity - we KNOW he knew she was a virgin as per the texts) in a dirty alley, drunk at 4am with a complete stranger - who in their right mind would think a girl was consenting! The fact that he may have been intoxicated DOES not mitigate his culpability, whereas her level of intoxication does render her incapable of granting consent under the law! (Although in an obscene application of the law she was determined too drunk to be a reliable witness in identifying Lazarus, but not drunk enough to fall into the unable to give consent category - what a joke).
I am really, really perplexed by this decision and I think it is a incorrect application of the law. It stinks to high heaven. It stinks of entitlement and privilege and male patriarchy. It reeks of a young man's right to his "bright future" and an intact reputation and that's he's a good boy and a good son and his parents are wealthy and connected, overriding the word of a vulnerable, traumatised and abused young woman. I am glad his name is out there and I hope the stink follows him for the rest of his life.
Crimes Act NSW s61H(3) also says that if he was drunk he could not consent.
'The fact that he may have been intoxicated DOES not mitigate his culpability, whereas her level of intoxication does render her incapable of granting consent under the law!' - You don't find this statement a bit hypocritical?
No. Otherwise rapists could just use self-intoxication to reduce their culpability. This puts the responsibility of obtaining consent on the perpetrator.
I am in full support of consent only being enthusiastic consent. Only that is a YES. Anything else is a NO. I sincerely hope the law review into consent supports this interpretation.
So if was drunk and robbed by another drunk person, I should have some culpability and the drunk robber should get off lightly, because he was drunk? No, buddy. Same thing, he's drunk, he committed the crime, she has no culpability because she committed no crime.
If you robbed someone with their consent, sure.
While I believe in this case he committed the crime, it's not always like that.
If he was drunk he couldn't consent, how could he commit the crime?