Many women who experience domestic violence and/or rape and sexual assault secretly record conversations with their abusers.
We’ve always been under the impression these secret recordings are not admissible as evidence in court.
A recent ruling in Australia has turned this situation on its head and it’s a huge win for victim-survivors who are trying to get justice.
Australia’s highest court has dismissed an appeal from a rapist who repeatedly violated his female partner while she slept.
The man wanted his convictions overturned because a covert recording of him admitting to the first rape was illegally obtained.
Recording private conversations remains illegal in Australia.
However, the High Court justices found the woman’s recording was able to be used as evidence because it aimed to protect her ‘bodily autonomy and integrity’.
“The covert recording was the reminder to the complainant, by replaying it to herself, to avoid being exposed to the real risk of being raped,” the justices said.
“The interest of a person in not being raped is an interest deserving of the very strongest protection.”
After the man raped her the first time, the woman used her phone to record a conversation during which she confronted him about the attack. The abuser admitted to his offending.
Four weeks later, he raped her again.
At trial, the woman said she made the recording to ‘convince myself never to go back to him no matter what happened’.
A South Australian jury convicted him on two counts of rape but could not reach a verdict on two other offences.
The rapist is serving a 9.5-year prison term.
HIGH COURT ALLOWS SECRET RECORDING OF ABUSE CONFESSIONS
