I have recently completed a video interview with a former NSW police prosecutor who contacted me because he was concerned about our dysfunctional justice system. Richard McDonald spent 22 years in the police, mainly working as a legal consultant in the sex crimes squad. He’s now a lawyer in private practice in Sydney.

Richard revealed a system captured by ideology, where police are discouraged from properly investigating sexual assault and domestic violence claims. ‘Let the court decide’ is the adopted philosophy, as even the most dubious allegations end up before overworked magistrates, judges and juries who often aren’t presented with the evidence they need to properly assess the validity of these very serious complaints.

I’ve made two videos with Richard, the first talking about sexual assault claims and the next about domestic violence allegations – the two crimes dominating our criminal justice system, largely due to feminists tinkering with our laws to try to ensure more male convictions.

Here’s our discussion of sexual assault.

Richard’s revelations blew out of the water some myths being promoted about these crimes – such as the notion that false allegations are rare. In his initial letter to me, Richard explained that, in his role as a legal consultant to the sex crimes squad, he analysed hundreds of sexual assault matters to determine whether there was a reasonable prospect of a conviction. His startling conclusion:

‘I provided advice in the range of over 90 per cent not to commence proceedings because of the complicity of women involved in sexual relationships with men and their motives to lie.’

In the video, you will see Richard talking at some length to me about women’s motivations to concoct or fabricate allegations: including embarrassment after regretting sex, saving face when a casual hook-up runs counter to the woman’s cultural beliefs, or the ‘scrum down’ when female friends help rewrite the history of what happened.

Here’s a man who has never been afraid to stick his neck out. Asking around, I discovered he had quite a reputation for fearless advice in his role as police prosecutor. He refused to support applications for AVOs which he felt were just to assist family law matters.

In the second part of the main video, on domestic violence Richard tells the story of turning up at the scene of a domestic violence dispute and finding the man in handcuffs. He asked whether anyone had interviewed the man to learn his side of the story. Surprise, surprise. No one had bothered.

This is standard practice. But as Richard points out, official domestic violence policy requires police to determine ‘whether sufficient evidence exists to support criminal charges’. That is simply not happening.

The system has been totally perverted, he told me, bemoaning the fact that most domestic violence matters end up with the man in court without any attempt to examine his evidence, facing overworked magistrates who basically rubber-stamp the AVO application.

Even with alleged sexual offences, he reports it was an uphill battle to try to ensure both sides of the story were properly heard before the accused was charged. Like the man who was up on child pornography charges, based on photos of naked children. Richard discovered the photos in question were of the man’s own kids, amongst many taken as part of normal family life. They were innocently produced. But the police hadn’t bothered to put these photos in context and ignored the fact there was a lawful defence.

He’s pessimistic about the chances of changing the system, given the disproportionate influence of feminist stakeholders, including the many domestic violence support groups. We discussed a story I heard from a man who achieved a miracle in getting his ex charged with making false allegations – with the help of a very senior police officer. But then she went along to the Domestic Violence Service Management who, even when presented with evidence of the criminal charges against her, still choose to help the woman and child hide from the father. Richard confirmed this bias is commonplace.

It says a great deal that this experienced former police prosecutor has chosen to speak out about his concerns that the system is out of control, particularly as many current officers of the court no longer appear to sufficiently adhere to the principles and traditions underpinning our justice system.

And then there’s the state of our family law system. Those of you who attended our Restoring the Presumption of Innocence conference will remember Nadine Taylor, who took part in our final Call to Action session. Nadine has spent 20 years advocating for family law reform in the UK, working recently as a professional ‘McKenzie Friend’, providing support for people representing themselves in court.

For the past year, she’s recently been helping a friend in Australia who’s fighting a massive family law battle, complete with the usual onslaught of false allegations of domestic violence.

She wrote to me summing up this experience:

‘I never thought I would say this, but the Australian family court process makes our UK court process look positively caring, compassionate and efficient.’

She mentioned particularly the AVO system ‘sought with alarming frequency and lethal application in what appears to be pretty much most cases, issued by police officers without any background checks or evidence, and then exploited to prevent contact with children’.

Nadine concludes that even though the UK system has problems. ‘I would rather be a father in that system that the Australian one, and I would use every breath in my body to fight against the UK implementing such a system. The Australian family court process is far more complex and unnecessarily drawn out than it needs to be, unless of course the purpose is to wear you down to the extent you give up and walk away, financially and emotionally bankrupt minus your children and sanity.’

It is not an overstatement to say that our system of justice is under serious threat in Australia. It is so very important that we make our voices heard about where this is all heading. Before it is too late.