Football and Sexual Crime, from the Courtroom to the Newsroom by Deb Waterhouse-Watson

Author:Deb Waterhouse-Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030337056
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The use of ‘accuser ’ in this context is particularly problematic, as it juxtaposes Lovett in a caring role, checking on Lavinia’s welfare, with Lavinia as his attacker. Lowe raises the possibility that Lavinia was mistaken as to Lovett ’s identity, but as explained in the previous section, lengthy quotes from Grace embed repetitive presuppositions that what took place was sex rather than rape. Grace argued, ‘She consented. She was a responsive participant, she was responsive to the sexual intimacy’ (my italics), presupposing romance which is inconsistent with rape. He also repeats ‘responsive’, which refutes the (absent) claim that Lavinia was asleep or unconscious from intoxication. While this language derives from the defence barrister rather than the journalist , and is what the jury heard, court reporters are not obligated to repeat or highlight the persuasive linguistic strategies of defence barristers. Paraphrase is common, and some court reporters described doing precisely that because they did not want to amplify a problematic defence line of questioning.

Lowe also includes Grace’s characterisation of Lavinia as a ‘party girl ’, juxtaposing this with details from Grace’s narrative that omit the uncontested context of the events: ‘The complainant was out to enjoy herself, “drink alcohol and meet young men”, Mr Grace said. The two women went back to Gram’s apartment and the woman laid [sic] fully clothed on Gram’s bed’. With no mention of Lavinia’s extreme intoxication , a woman who intended to ‘meet young men’ lying on a bed implies she expected sex, which could have been clarified with the fact that Gram and Helen put Lavinia on the bed to sober up, which Lovett did not dispute.

In the Herald Sun , Paul Anderson (2011d) takes this characterisation further, consistently constructing the complainant as a groupie interested in sex with footballers, leading with: ‘A MODEL who claims former St Kilda footballer Andrew Lovett raped her may have thought she was having sex with a different player, a jury has been told’ (my italics). Emphasising ‘player’ in this way, rather than naming an individual or simply ‘someone else’, implies that Lavinia wanted to have sex with (a) footballer(s), not necessarily a specific individual, and is thus a groupie for whom any footballer will do. Positioning this in the lead implies it is the most important information (and potentially the central allegation). In addition, there are two further references to ‘team members’ and ‘teammates’ in quick succession, emphasising the fact that those involved are footballers, and that they are similar. Anderson also omits Lavinia being placed on the bed, although he does include a more detailed description of her state after the alleged rape: Lavinia was found ‘in a foetal position in a distressed state’. However, her alleged statement, ‘That black bastard fucked the shit out of me. I feel like a slut. I thought it was you’ follows, and when the remainder of the article establishes her as a groupie, ‘I feel like a slut’ appears to confirm her groupie status. Anderson also includes a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.