Shortcut: The Young Woman a Country Town Didn’t Believe

This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie.

Balmoral is a small farming town in Western Victoria, the kind of place where everyone

knows each other and local football sits at the heart of the community.

In 2016, a young woman we're calling Elise reported that she had been sexually assaulted

while attending a birthday party.

What followed was a case that would divide the town, with Elise and her family saying

they felt increasingly isolated while many locals publicly supported the two men accused

of the attack, though two separate juries ultimately found the men guilty of rape.

The story is the focus of the ABC podcast Home Town Boys, hosted by journalists Andy

Burns and Charlotte King.

They join us to talk about what they uncovered while investigating the case and the impact

it's had on the community.

This is Australian True Crime.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created.

There were injury, why were wrong people, of the cool and nation.

And a warning.

This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

Alright, let's begin.

Tell us about what happened.

Our victim is called Elise and the podcast.

She is in the podcast.

This woman is speaking for herself and the podcast and telling her own story, which is brilliant.

This is a party in town isn't a few years after high school.

So by this stage, all the players have left high school, some are working.

Elise is at uni and it's sort of a reunion at someone's 21st, right?

You know, they've got music, fire pits.

It just looks like a really lovely time and Elise, when she's talking about the early

part of the night, says the same thing.

So lovely to catch up with everyone, everyone's having a laugh, you know, mucking around.

So there's absolutely nothing to indicate that anyone is in any danger at all.

These are all people that they've known for years, you know, very trusted.

And they're here and there too.

There's oldies there.

There's a joint 60th as well.

Right.

So the dad and this friend from school's joint party.

So yeah, there were generations.

It sounds incredibly wholesome.

Yeah.

Elise has been asked to stay overnight so she can help cook breakfast like a fry up in the

morning.

So she's brought her swag.

But in the wee hours of the morning, her friend who's birthday party, it is says, hey, sleep

in the caravan.

Don't worry about your swag.

And she's like, all right, well, I'm ready for bed.

Now kind of thing.

And so they they head on in.

And she's pretty wasted.

The birthday girl ends up sort of half asleep on the bed with Elise when all these other,

like, not kids, but, you know, boys that they're known from from class come in and they're

really rowdy and mucking about in the caravan.

Drunk, you know, rocking it up and down.

And around that time is when the birthday girl gets taken out by her partner back into

inside into bed.

But the most of the crew that's in the caravan sort of drifts in and out and then suddenly

Elise is on the bed where she'd been with her with her girlfriend.

But she's left in the caravan with these two guys.

Everyone else drifted off right?

Everyone else has gone around that time that people were drifting off these two.

Luke and Sean were watching porn, I guess on a phone.

Luke was watching porn with this other guy who was actually the boyfriend of the 21st birthday girl.

We weren't able to verify where the Sean was involved in that.

But yeah, there's caught testing around the porn watching.

I don't know what they're watching, but it was making them laugh.

They feel ominous.

And then people just wander out as they do, wander home, whatever.

But she's then in the caravan with the two boys, Luke and Sean.

Yeah.

Now, we have two options here.

Would you like me, would you like to tell us what happened?

Or would you like us to drop in a grab from the show?

I can play the show.

We think it's important to describe exactly what happened next.

But it does contain details of sexual assault.

So if it's too much, just give forward.

When Luke gets onto the bed beside Elise,

she immediately rolls away from him.

But she comes up against Sean because he's on her other side.

Luke suggests a threesome, and Elise says no, no way.

And then Luke puts his hands under her shirt,

and she says no, and tries to elbow him away.

Now Sean has his hand inside Elise's underpants,

and he's kissing her face and neck.

Once I realized where their hands were going

and the intention of what was like going to happen,

it like...

Yeah, it was not good.

It was not good.

Yeah.

It was pretty fucking brutal.

Yeah.

Yeah, everyone knows what happened.

Luke gets up on his knees,

and he pulls off Elise's jeans,

and he raps her.

While this is occurring,

Sean has a hold of Elise's hand

and places it on his penis.

Immediately after Luke finishes,

he leaves the caravan.

It was the way they were talking to each other

and about me that just made me feel sick to my stomach.

And just before he exits, he turns to Sean,

and he mutters something along the lines of,

she's all yours.

You know, I'm all done, you're turn now.

And he just left the doorway wide open,

like, does zero care.

Elise tries to roll into the blankets,

but is unsuccessful.

Sean takes his turn next,

and stops only when Elise pushes with all her might

against his chest.

Directly after she's been raped by two friends at a party,

she started calling her friends.

She's alone in the caravan by this stage.

She's thinking, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do.

She starts calling people four in the morning, something.

So Rosie, her friend answers,

and Rosie's mum, which seems like a great thing,

is the district nurse.

She's a nurse.

So Elise knows this lady,

and also knows that professionally she will help her.

Yeah.

And they get in the car,

and they go straight over there, and they pick her up.

Taken her back to her own home,

wrapped her in blankets,

and saying to her,

we need to go to the police.

And I'm just cheering at that point, thinking,

what a great woman, fantastic.

Lisa, the district nurse,

Lisa Hutchins,

she's actually related to Luke,

one of the offenders,

but also very close family friends.

Lisa gives a statement to police,

and she just tells the story that we've heard

that you shared with us earlier,

that yes, I picked her up,

I took her back to my house,

this is what she said,

and then took her to the police.

Very straightforward.

And the key thing is that she says

that Elise told her she'd been raped,

and that it was Luke and Sean who'd raped her.

Yeah.

But then Lisa starts,

this is where Lisa kind of first wobble,

I think, is she says to police,

but I just don't think Luke's capable.

Yeah.

She says that to Jeff Bartum,

the community cop,

as she's signing her statement.

So this is a moment where

it's sort of an administrative thing

that is come down to get her signature on this statement,

that she's already given to Alice

and the detective over the phone.

So it's just this sort of throw away comment

after signing it.

I don't want to change my statement,

but I just don't believe he's guilty of that.

I just don't think he could have done that.

Yeah.

It was what she said.

And Jeff is sort of just like,

sorry, what?

Like you're signing a statement

to say this is what happened,

but then you're also saying this.

That you don't believe it.

And so the cracks are starting to appear.

And that was probably six weeks after the incident.

So there'd been some dust settling time.

Yeah.

And in court, Lisa talks about speaking with Luke

that his mother asked her to go and speak with him

and check on him and see if he was okay.

And that he'd said that he had not done it.

And so there was sort of a parallel investigation

going on there,

if you like,

taking it upon herself to find out

what had occurred from the men's perspective.

And at that time,

that that was happening,

the family of the victim were told by police,

say nothing, say home,

don't get into anything.

And obviously it's very difficult for them

like to go down the street.

And that also meant that there was an information vacuum,

which allowed the men's narrative to take hold.

So it gets to court.

And Lisa Hutchins, the nurse,

she is a witness for the prosecution.

She just, again, just reiterates

what she said in her statement, basically, right?

We picked her up.

Yeah, she does to a point,

although it has to be coaxed out of her.

She eventually admitted that she was a witness

for the prosecution.

She just, again,

just reiterates what she said in her statement, basically, right?

We picked her up.

Yeah, she does to a point,

but she eventually admits,

Elise told her she was raped,

which is what the prosecutor is the bad for.

She's like, can you just tell me there's one thing, please?

Did she say on that morning

when you picked her up that she was raped?

Yes, she did.

So then the two men give evidence.

Sean and Luke give evidence.

Sean says the threesome was Elise's idea.

The idea of having a threesome was Elise's.

And Luke, though,

takes a standard admits that it was his idea

that he suggested it.

Yeah, I think the defense team described that

as a wrinkle in the evidence from Sean.

I think the inconsistency was the point of it.

I think they wanted it.

If it's true, then you would have the same story.

Yeah.

And you know, I think they made a decision that,

okay, no, we can't go with that with what Sean says,

which is that it's Elise's idea

because clearly it wasn't.

And it's totally out of, you know,

step with what she said and the whole idea of consent.

So, yeah, I think the defense, I don't know exactly,

but the defense law makes the decision

that we need to put this out there

and that actually it was a looks ideal,

just to keep things on the nerve and kill.

So he does accept that.

But then, yeah, the prosecutor goes in with Sean.

With Sean.

Yeah.

With the idea that, well, that's a green light, isn't it?

To sex.

And why would you never have mentioned that before

that it was Elise's idea?

But yeah, it felt like it was being made up on the hop.

Well, there was a lot of that, I think.

There was a lot of that sort of reflecting back on the statements

that were taken at the time.

And then the evidence people were giving in court.

There seemed to be a lot of hang on.

Yeah.

Or at the end of the day, you need to decide who you believe here.

Yeah.

And the prosecution's argument to the jury

is Elise has always been consistent with her story from the get-go.

She's done it again in court.

You just need to decide whether you believe her.

So the jury, in the end, didn't seem to struggle

with reaching a guilty verdict for both men.

No, it didn't take an enormous amount of time.

Yeah.

And they came back with guilty on all counts.

Which is great.

It sounds like a victory.

Sounds like common sense in all of that.

Their sentences, Sean was given five years, eight months on the top

and three years and four months on the bottom.

And Luke, four years, ten months on the top, two years, ten months on the bottom.

So sort of happy days.

I mean, we're never happy with the sentencing for sexual offenders.

To be honest, while I'm not, I won't speak for you.

But so that seems like a successful conviction.

So the day after the men go to prison?

Yeah.

So it's real now, right?

They are in prison.

These two young men from the church.

For years.

And they've been sentenced for years.

And it's years.

Lisa said that she attempted to contact the informant

couldn't get through.

And so she ends up going to the defense team

to make a new statement.

And that new statement will completely turn everything on its head.

And it revolves around two words that she says she recalls

being said on the night in question

when she picked a lease up from the caravan.

Look, maybe.

And the question to that.

To get that answer is, did you consent to this?

According to Lisa statement, did you consent to this act?

And then she's saying that Lisa standing there sort of

arming and iron saying, look, maybe, but not sure.

Now, she has never mentioned that before.

Lisa has never mentioned that when interviewed by police,

when interviewed working with the prosecutors.

No.

When they were prepping her.

She's never mentioned this happened before.

No.

At no point until the men went to prison

did this new statement arrive.

So we can't speak to the motivation for that new statement.

But it definitely was an absolute game changer

because the court of appeal decided that it was enough to grant

the men a new trial.

And so they were released from prison from prison.

And then it was courage of justice has taken place

because the first jury wasn't aware of this information.

Their release didn't happen overnight.

No.

And so that's important because what was about 19 months?

They spent in jail while this process was working its way out.

That's right.

So the statements the day after the jail.

Yeah.

But obviously the defense has to mount.

Yeah.

You know, an argument for an appeal.

The appeal has to be heard.

Yeah.

But when the appeal actually was heard,

it was immediate that they were released.

Yeah.

And so they ended up serving around half their minimum sentence

at this point.

So then their release, they go back to their communities.

So they go to trial.

They have a second trial.

And now this time around Lisa is a witness for the defense.

And at this point, she starts bringing up some other stuff

she's never mentioned before, such as,

Elise was flirtatious with a number of males at the party.

Yeah.

And this kind of is volunteered by Lisa.

Yeah.

She's not asked that question.

Actually, she's sort of asked about what she remembers

from the party just generally.

And that's what she comes out with immediately.

Amorous, flirtatious.

And the prosecutor put the brakes on and said,

that is a scandal or a accusation to make here and now.

Has no relevance whatsoever, but is also.

But very powerful.

Yeah.

What are you doing here?

What about when she said the bombshell,

that she said that she remembers Elise saying,

when she asked Elise, did you give consent?

Elise sort of said, no, I will loot maybe,

but not Sean.

This was the bombshell and you evidence

that enabled these guys to get another trial.

How was that handled?

Well, this is the moment to test that.

Yeah.

And to be honest, it was a bit of an anti-climax for me

because I was watching it in court and I was like,

what's going to happen when they get to that party?

This is the moment.

And she kind of just said it in a similar,

almost exactly the same way as in her statement.

And then, yeah, that it gets more interesting

when it's under cross-examination.

Yeah.

Because then Sarah Thomas, the veteran barrister,

just slowly sort of widdles away basically

at this witness's credibility in front of the jury.

Yeah. As far as the prosecutor's concerned,

it's like, well, we've got Elise.

She's still there with her consistent statement,

with her consistent testimony that she's been, you know,

repeating a year on year since the minutes after this happened.

You make a choice between her and what she's said

and this woman who is not a witness of truth.

And so she kind of pits the two women against each other

to the jury.

There's no reason that you should believe this woman.

They were found guilty for a second time,

but sentencing controversial.

This is a full seven years, by the way,

after the party, isn't it?

It is. Yeah.

So they weren't sentenced until April 2023.

There was an expectation definitely on the part of the prosecution

that they would serve more jail time.

So these were serious charges and they're serious crimes.

But in any case, the judge decided to go ahead

and give them the community orders.

No more jail time.

So in the end, they served that initial 19 months

jail time for raping Elise.

That's that.

Yeah.

After the last episode came out,

and it kind of went crazy.

Like it was at the top of the Reddit forums

and people were like laying into the place

and saying pretty full-on stuff on Reddit.

And I actually said to Charlotte,

like, I don't like that,

because there are lots of great people in Belmoral,

who didn't agree with what happened.

And also, as we've said,

I don't think it's about that place.

No.

No, no, no.

Or word of the place.

Not about that place.

Absolutely not.

Yeah.

So it did feel like a bit of a mob,

but then this thing did happen.

Yes.

And it was very, very hard to find supporters of Elise

in the town.

You could count them on one hand.

Thank you so much.

The podcast is excellent.

I couldn't wait to talk to you about it.

The twists and turns,

it's like a movie or a TV miniseries.

But it's very, very real.

And as I said, very relatable.

I think to most women, to be honest,

I think most of us have found ourselves,

as I said,

in situations that may not have escalated

the way Elise has did.

But yeah, I think it all sounds very familiar to most of us.

So congratulations.

Well done.

Thanks for joining us on Australian True Crime.

If you would like any more information

about anything you've heard on the show today,

or support numbers,

just check out the show notes.

The producers of this podcast

recognise the traditional owners of the land

on which it's recorded.

They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders

past, present and those emerging.