I’m going to declare my interest up front here. I know the victim (although for obvious reasons I will not identify her) and that is the reason I am deviating from my usual blog topics.
This woman was raped, as is so often the case, by someone she knew and to whose house she had gone willingly. In her account of the event the defendant, Nicholas Gonzales, led her upstairs on a pretext, lay on top of her and removed her jeans, before forcing her to have sex.
The Sydney jury sent a note to the judge during the trial asking for more information about 'how exactly Nick took off her jeans'.
The note from a jury member added: 'I doubt those kind of jeans can be removed without any sort of collaboration.'
For some reason this jury believes it is not possible for skinny jeans to be removed without the consent of the wearer, a concept I find ludicrous.
For one thing a strong enough and determined enough assailant can remove pretty much any article of clothing by force, especially if his victim, like this one, has an exceptionally petite figure (she is barely 6,1/2 stone).
For another the act of pulling down a tight pair of jeans tends to bring any underwear down with them, making rape even easier (and yes this is from experience, albeit in play).
Knowing the victim personally I do not doubt her side of the story and that a jury can aquit on such a flimsy conjecture is in any event a serious miscarriage of justice. They just seem to assume with no empirical evidence that a pair of skinnies is an effective rape deterrent, a concept which, if it is remotely true, denim labels everywhere should use as a marketing ploy.
This woman has been waiting a long time for justice, what she got was a sick joke.
this video says it all.
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