Madness in our courts

- Feminists bully politicians into passing unjust, unworkable laws.

Meet Marc Catelli, a Sydney gelato salesman who five years ago found his face splashed across the newspapers, accused of sexual assault. It turned out that his accuser had made similar accusations about two other men within the previous two years. One case ended up being dismissed and the other man was found not guilty.

Catelli was due to face a jury trial where this woman’s history of false accusations would not have been mentioned. In NSW it is not permitted to present this history to the jury because of ‘rape shield laws’ designed to protect sexual assault complainants from cross examination about their sexual history.

Sexual history is one thing. But surely juries should be told about a complainant’s tendency to fabricate sexual assault allegations – as allowed in all other Australian states and territories. Even though the courts (NSW Court of Appeal and the High Court) agree that a complainant’s history of fabrication is both relevant and justified in the defence of a sexual assault charge, the NSW legislation specifically prevents this. And this crazy NSW provision – known as Section 294CB – remains in place, even though the courts agree it can prejudice a fair trial.

Catelli was lucky. After a number of court hearings where his complainant failed to show up, the prosecutors dropped the case. He dodged a bullet, being spared the ordeal of facing a jury who would be denied knowledge of this woman’s flaky history. But the damaging media reports are still out there for all to see.

The glaring injustice of the NSW legislation preventing evidence of prior false allegations, was highlighted in an article by Chris Merritt in The Australian last month, which concludes “the case for reform in the way the justice system deals with sexual assault has never been greater.” Merritt was commenting on a report from an Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry which has just been handed to the government. The whole thing is a stitch up, with the inquiry led by carefully chosen female lawyers likely to be sympathetic to Attorney General Dreyfus’ goal of “improving the experience of victims of sexual violence in the justice system.”

As Chris Merritt points out, these narrow terms of reference will do nothing to address the current crisis in public confidence regarding this vital part of the justice system. “In a perfect world, the commission’s report would provide a string of ideas on how to restore public confidence in the fairness and rigour of this body of law after years of scandal.”

Judges have been speaking out against the injustice caused by Section 294CB for over five years. In a case known as R v RB, District Court judge Sean Grant explained that that section of the Criminal Procedure Act prevented a jury from being told that a complainant in a sexual assault prosecution was a compulsive liar. “The statute occasions significant unfairness to the accused. The unfairness is real and not ­illusory,” the judge wrote.

“It prevents the accused from placing before the jury relevant evidence (her past fabrications) which is capable of going directly to an issue in the trial, namely the honesty and reliability of the complainant. It prevents the accused from showing the complainant to be a compulsive false accuser of sexual misconduct on the part of others,” his judgment says.

Just last year District Court Judge Robert Newlinds SC raised the same issue in R v Martinez. I’ve written previously about this case, where the complainant nine times got totally pissed and had sex with separate men, only to turn around and report them for sexual assault, claiming she’d been too drunk to give consent. All these cases ended up with the men facing a sexual assault charge, although three were forced to do a deal with the devil (by taking a plea bargain and pleading guilty to lesser offences).

The jury found the accused not guilty and the judge concluded that the case should never have been brought to trial. Newlinds added, “If the jury had known the full picture of the Complainant’s history of accusing men of rape in similar circumstances, the time of deliberation would have been measured in minutes.”

So, for years there has been this glaring obstacle to justice in the NSW criminal courts. It’s widely acknowledged as a problem in legal circles, but our politicians won’t touch it because they are too nervous of the noisy women’s lobby which screams blue murder at any measure which protects accused men’s legal rights and undermines their goal of sending more men to jail, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

The NSW Labor government like their federal counterparts, are willing prisoners of the feminist idealogues, and would never consider reforming these provisions, no matter how many eminent judicial figures point out their negative impact on a fair trial. And as for the NSW Coalition – well, it is currently led by Mark Speakman who pushed through legislation for enthusiastic consent and coercive control, making NSW a hot contender for the most draconian jurisdiction for Australian men in this country.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t expose this shocking state of affairs. And that’s just what I would like you to do. Here’s a first lobbying task for you all in 2025. A draft letter for you to send to NSW politicians - here’s the link.

We’ve had AI experts working to provide you with the choice of various drafts in a system designed to make the process demand only a few minutes of your time. It’s pretty basic right now but will become more sophisticated as we work on it.

PLEASE step up. We need large numbers from NSW lobbying their local members so please circulate the link to all your networks. But we’d also like interstate people to write to NSW political leaders exposing this absurd and unjust situation.

We’ll be following up with action on the broader issue of the failure of our justice system nationally to take action against women who make false allegations… more about that later.

Arndt Army news

Note that as we put together each draft letter we will post them on my new Arndt Army section, which has been set up to announce new campaign initiatives, as well as reporting news and other items of interest. You’ll need to keep an eye on this new Substack section because I won’t be sending the new information out in emails - I imagine most of you get far too many of those already!

Brave magistrate rejects feminist laws

Back to the story of what’s happening in our courts. NSW’s problem is only one example of the madness taking place in our justice system, as a result of feminist lobby groups bullying cowardly politicians into passing increasingly unjust, and often unworkable laws.

From Queensland there’s an interesting report of a magistrate who has bucked against amendments to domestic violence laws trying to push police to stop issuing cross protection orders in violent homes where both parties are having a go at each other. Under the new regime, police are being bullied into determining who is “in need of protection” – meaning she gets protection and he gets none.

Consider the fact that it’s unusual for males to be the sole perpetrators. The huge American Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project summarised over 1700 peer-reviewed DV research studies and showed 58% of interpersonal violence is bi-directional, and only 14% of the unidimensional violence was male to female. Yet here we have the state trying to pretend that this small group is the norm. In fact, Magistrate Sinclair dryly remarks that DV law in Qld “is based on the notion that mutual domestic violence only occurs in the context of a clear perpetrator/victim dichotomy”.

Magistrate Sinclair wasn’t having a bar of it. Presented with a case (MAS v FEM [2025] QMC 1) where police had granted temporary protection orders to both parties, he looked at the evidence, concluded the police had made the right decision and went on to make BOTH orders permanent. He commented that the task of identifying the main offender “would be very difficult if not impossible on the state of the information available at the time”.

The magistrate rejected the push to have police avoid cross-applications, stating “Any desire to identify the unwarranted cross-application at the earliest possible time to prevent systems abuse seems very much outweighed by the prospect of the true aggrieved not getting even a TPO simply because the first police officer on the scene misidentified them as the Respondent or the true perpetrator filing an application first.”

In plain speak, a hasty decision may well misidentify the male as sole perpetrator. Bravo! Here’s a judicial officer willing to point out that objectively looking at the facts before making a decision is in the interests of fairness and justice. A rare win for courage and common sense and one in the eye for the ideologues.

She’s no victim

A key player in our new Arndt Army has her own story about the madness of the domestic violence industry in Queensland. She’s a well-known member of her community, as is her husband -

This long-married couple were having some marital problems and had sought counselling to deal with them. One day, the wife was very upset and somehow the police were alerted.

They interviewed the counsellor who assured them all was well. The wife went away for a few days and three times the police visited their home and grilled the husband. The wife’s work colleagues, her boss and her mother were contacted – all assured the police that the wife was fine. But they still showed up to interview the wife:

“The police acted as if I was on some sort of missing persons or possibly deceased list. Again, I confirmed all was well, and that my husband and I are maturely handling our marital matters and it is our business to sort them out.”

Not according to the police. The officers stated they believed her safety was at risk, and regardless of her opposition, they would impose a violence order on her husband.

“I spoke up strongly and told them outright that I didn’t agree and disapproved of their proposed action which would destroy our livelihoods and cause damage to both of us. They kept trying to placate me, treating me as a victim. It was actually coercive behaviour from the police.”

The next day her husband received the violence protection order. The police came again to their house and she spoke to their body cams stating firmly that she did not consent to the violence order.

Two days later they presented holding hands to the Magistrates court for the first hearing. Her husband requested legal support and was given a brush off. She was offered legal aid. The wife told the lawyer she was standing by her husband and fighting to have the order dismissed. Amazingly her lawyer was sympathetic and explained her position to the magistrate who questioned the police over their reasoning.

The police maintained their stance.

The result was the couple had to each engage a lawyer to fight in court for the violence order to be dropped by the police who finally withdrew the order following the review of the body cam footage. It cost the couple over $10k, much lost time from their work and endless angst.

But it helped the couple join forces. “The silver lining is my husband and I are stronger than ever and this opened our eyes opened to the war on men”.

So, she volunteered for the Arndt Army: “It has never made any sense to me to denigrate men. It is the worst thing for society all round. We need positive strong men. Beating them down is simply abuse.”

This week Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spoke on a podcast about young men being sick of being treated as “ogres” and feeling “disenfranchised” and “ostracised.” Dutton was talking mainly about DEI and workplace discrimination, but it is in our justice system that men’s rights are most under siege.

No doubt, the Law Reform Commission report about to be released will suggest a whole new wave of assaults against those rights. Rather than allow the government to push these through, we all need to be vigilant, alert our local members of parliament to what is being proposed and voice our objections. We have to take a stand against this barrage of draconian and unjust laws.