‘I Am That Girl’: Media reportage, anonymous victims and symbolic annihilation in the aftermath of sexual assault

Abstract

In the wake of movements such as #MeToo, greater scrutiny has been brought to bear on the everyday nature of sexual violence. This has manifested in a global phenomenon of survivors speaking out publicly across a diverse range of platforms. This article explores one such Australian case that went on to become highly publicised against the backdrop of #MeToo. In May 2013, an 18-year-old woman named Saxon Mullins met 21-year-old Luke Lazarus on the dancefloor of a nightclub in the inner Sydney suburb of Kings Cross. Lazarus claimed he was the part-owner of the club and offered to take her to a VIP area. Instead, he led her to a dark alley and had sexual intercourse with her. Mullins has always described this as non-consensual. In 2018, after a complex legal process comprising two trials, both of which were overturned in response to successful appeals, the New South Wales Court of Appeal ordered against a third trial on the basis that it would be oppressive and unfair to Lazarus. In response, following widespread media interest in the case, Mullins spoke out publicly in 2018 on a national current affairs program, Four Corners. While the sidelining of victims from formal criminal justice processes has been widely documented, we explore how this can also occur in media coverage accompanying a case. Identifying a shift in the status afforded to the victim in the wake of her speaking out publicly, we argue that this raises broad questions about the impact of victim anonymity provisions and highlights how a survivor’s capacity to speak out in the wake of institutional failures is highly contingent. A tension between the tangible value of anonymity, set against the perverse effect of once again silencing victims, is a dilemma that remains unresolved.