on 02-10-2014 08:00 AM
Woman who accuses Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of rape says police failed her
A news paper video of the woman is here http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/woman-who-accuses-opposition-leader-bill-shorten-of-rape-says-polic...
A WOMAN who claims she was raped by federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has accused Victoria Police of failing to investigate properly because of his position of power.
Earlier this year, authorities decided not to press charges against Mr Shorten because prosecutors felt that “there was no reasonable prospect of conviction”.
The woman, Kathy, asked that her surname not be published, but agreed to be photographed.
Interviewed by the Herald Sun in Queensland, she said the trauma of what she says happened to her had been exacerbated by what she sees as an inadequate police investigation.
“I had three main witnesses ... I gave them the phone number of one, her maiden and married names, told them she lived in Melbourne.
“The police told me they couldn’t find her,” Kathy said.
“But they went to all of Bill’s friends,’’ she said.
Mr Shorten’s press secretary Ryan Liddell last night referred to Mr Shorten’s statement in August: “The claim has now been thoroughly and rigorously investigated by police, as is entirely proper.’’
Mr Shorten said then: “I fully co-operated to clear my name. And that is what I have done ... The police have now concluded the investigation. The decision speaks for itself.”
A Victoria Police spokesman said the force was satisfied that the matter had been “fully investigated”.
Kathy told the Herald Sun she felt let down and devastated by how police had handled the matter.
“With another witness, the police tried to say she was influenced by the media, which doesn’t make any sense.
“I don’t think I had a hope in hell with the police because of who he is,” Kathy said.
“If Bill was just a regular guy I think it would have been different. The police would have had a load of evidence to do something.
“I left it in the hands of the police, and they did nothing.”
Kathy, now 44, alleges Mr Shorten raped her at a Labor youth conference in Portarlington in the winter of 1986, when she was just 16.
The community nurse completed a 19-page police statement with detectives from Victoria Police’s sexual offences squad last October 23.
The police rang me up in April and told me they had called Bill in for questioning.
“They then said the case was closed and that they weren’t going to reopen it,” Kathy said.
“They said I would not be able to get access to any of the evidence. They said I could apply through Freedom of Information but I wouldn’t get it.
“I never really had a leg to stand on. They have tried to bully me,” she said.
“ I have got rights, and they are trying to take away my rights. People are treating me like a nutcase.
“It doesn’t mean I’m stupid or I’m fabricating things.”
Kathy had a rapid rise in Young Labor when elected to the rural policy committee.
She became a delegate for party state and national conferences in 1986.
Soon after joining Labor she says she came to know Mr Shorten — himself a rising star in the party.
After he travelled to Wodonga to meet local members, Kathy says she began speaking to him on the phone regularly about party and policy issues.
Kathy says she and her sister went to Portarlington for the youth Labor conference during the winter of 1986.
Kathy says she was raped by Mr Shorten after being pushed into a bathroom in the early hours of the morning.
She says no one else was present. A number of Young Labor members had spent the evening drinking and smoking marijuana, she says.
In her police statement, Kathy outlined how she came to know Mr Shorten and what she said happened on the night in question.
Kathy says she was raped after a group had arrived back from going for a drive.
“There was a knock at the door,” Kathy says. “I thought it was my sister. I opened the door and it was Bill.”
Kathy says she and her sister left the camp the next day.
The Herald Sun has seen a police statement by Kathy’s sister, completed on October 23 last year, in which she confirms details about the location of the Labor youth camp and the people who were present.
on 04-10-2014 05:58 PM
on 04-10-2014 06:16 PM
If it did happen I hope she takes it further and mounts a civil case, just to show how much the justice system sux and that people with power and clout can get away with rape, murder, grand theft and the list just goes on.
on 04-10-2014 06:23 PM
on 05-10-2014 08:41 AM
@poddster wrote:All you have to do is consult history to see the grubbiness of all the Labor leaders, it is a prerequisite to qualify for the position.
let's not forget the paedophiles Labor has shielded for years, some are in prison but many of them are still around. What is it with Labor and criminality?
on 05-10-2014 08:51 AM
@lightningdance wrote:
@poddster wrote:All you have to do is consult history to see the grubbiness of all the Labor leaders, it is a prerequisite to qualify for the position.
let's not forget the paedophiles Labor has shielded for years, some are in prison but many of them are still around. What is it with Labor and criminality?
Excellent question, maybe you should put that to the NSW ICAC.
on 05-10-2014 09:04 AM
The isil terror is being milked by Bill for all he's worth. Stirring up division, racism and bigotry at Lakemba yesterday, pandering to the lowest base of people's anger and his thinly veiled attempt to blame Australia for this isil rage.
I wonder how the Japanese people are feeling in Australia and their own country when he launched into the attack on Japanese submarines and how Japan is a threat to Australia, conjured up war and death.
Poor Bill, he cares so much more than anybody else doesn't he, his replies to the PM are longer and more emotive, he is a clone of David Marr who we all know is such a carer.
Is ISIL Bills Beaconsfield?? the disaster he rode all the way to the top? over the back of a dead miner? Probably.
Bill has form in sexual harassment, has form with his staff and has form for his grubby climb to the top and has form for marrying up to abet his ambition.
His naked ambition is on show every day.
on 06-10-2014 09:11 AM
@pct001wine wrote:Maybe she will mount a civil case. If she does I'm sure it will be bankrolled by well-meaning media outlets and/or our friendly LNP. Purely to get to the truth of course.
Do you not agree that a victim of rape no matter how long ago it was perpetrated is worthy of further investigation? and if she wants to take it to a civil end then she is entitled to justice?
Making light of her accuastions and linking it with the LNP and media organisations is curious and is that fair to the victim?
Making it political of a victim of rape? how could this possibly have anything to do with the LNP when she and Shorten are and were at the time both Labor.
on 06-10-2014 10:39 AM
It was investigated.
It can be political because the past has shown us that it can be.........................these things are brought to the media's attention for a reason, at a particular time.
on 06-10-2014 10:55 AM
the woman made it political by posting her allegations on MP's social pages 20 years after the event. Why didn't she just make a quiet police report without trying to publicize it to the maxium
on 06-10-2014 11:02 AM
@debra9275 wrote:the woman made it political by posting her allegations on MP's social pages 20 years after the event. Why didn't she just make a quiet police report without trying to publicize it to the maxium
Better still why doesn't she just lay down and die, forget about it, keep her mouth shut?