Within an hour of her leaving the cave about dusk, he was grappling with police, arrested for allegedly raping the woman despite his protests that the sex was consensual.
He spent the next 18 months behind bars, awaiting trial, during which time he says he was assaulted.
But on the eve of his trial last month, the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the rape charge. Now Millhouse intends to sue the NSW police for wrongful imprisonment by withholding information from the DPP that would have led to the charge being dismissed earlier, says his lawyer, Paul Williams.
The case raises questions about the role of police in not revealing to the DPP information about the troubled background of the alleged victim, including a history of unsubstantiated sexual assault claims and multiple personality disorder.
Background information about the woman first emerged last month, on the day Justice Reg Blanch was to assign a District Court judge to hear the trial before a jury.
Crown prosecutors were granted a one-day adjournment to respond to a request from Williams for information on the woman, such as medical reports or criminal history.
The DPP had not received such details from Waverley police, who charged Millhouse. When police provided files to the DPP later in the day, copies were passed to his defence team.
The next day, without explanation, the DPP's office told Blanch it had ''no-billed'' the charge of intercourse without consent. In no-billing, the DPP does not have to state its reasons for dropping a charge.
The files, seen by
The Sun-Herald, contain reports from police - including officers attached to joint police and Department of Community Services child mistreatment teams - of investigations dating back to 2002, when the woman was 14. They included numerous unsubstantiated claims by her of being attacked and sexually assaulted by strangers - one calling himself the devil - in bush and at her home.
One report investigated by police included allegations that she was raped many times at a religious centre by an African immigrant who said it would rid her of a demon.
In the 2006 report of the alleged incidents at the religious centre, police wrote: ''History of mental illness and unsubstantiated sexual assault reports.''
In 2003 the woman made three reports to police about being dragged into bush and raped. After reviewing them, police said: ''There is insufficient evidence to proceed … no further action to be taken.'' Two more allegations of sexual assault that year were dismissed.
The files also contained a report on the woman four months after the alleged Bondi rape, when Millhouse was in custody, that was never declared to the defence team. It said she was found slumped in her car covered in dirt and insect bites near a coastal lake with no recollection of having left her western Sydney home the night before.
In the car police found a fresh lamb's heart, a broken cross with a date of birth engraved on it, a kitchen knife, scissors and a Stanley knife.
''Police are unable to determine if the [victim] slaughtered a lamb and took its heart,'' the report said. It also said her guardians had informed officers she had four personalities, each with a different name.
Williams said police should have reviewed the woman's background and given that information to the police legal branch and the DPP for review.
In no-billing the rape charge against Millhouse, the DPP did not drop charges of assaulting two police officers that arose from his arrest - one was allegedly bitten and the other kicked in the groin.
On Friday Millhouse's legal team again appeared before Justice Blanch in the Downing Centre District Court and received an adjournment to July 8, after advising he would make an application to the DPP to no-bill the assault charges and would also make an application for costs.
After his arrest Millhouse lost his cave home - council staff removed his property - and he lives with a former Bondi family who have supported him while on bail.
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You guys know I'm on your side, so I'm sure you will take this as friendly advice. You might want to stop posting entire articles like this before some feminist contacts the source, they file a complaint with blogger, and Blogger pulls your site.
Self hosting might be a good idea as webhosts are less likely to get rid of you if you are giving them money.
”Now Millhouse intends to sue the NSW police for wrongful imprisonment by withholding information from the DPP that would have led to the charge being dismissed earlier, says his lawyer, Paul Williams.”
In cases were the police become complicit in a miscarriage of justice they ought to not only be sued, but those who are shown to have willfully violated the law need to be fired as well.
I don’t know about how they do things in Australia, but it seems that here in the US it is becoming more common for investigators to also look into the backgrounds of the alleged victims, which often takes little more than reviewing the social networking posts to show that they are anything but innocents. This actually makes quite a bit of sense to do as part of the initial investigation as defense investigators can also easily dig up the same dirt, which will then become problematic should the choice be made to go forward with a prosecution. They will not openly acknowledge it, but quite a few cases are declined based largely on what is found out about the alleged victims (I know of one specific example in which the “victim” bragged about having gotten the guy into “big trouble” on her page, leading to an outright dismissal of the rape charges pending against her victim).
In this case out of Australia, there is at least an appearance of a cover-up of pertinent information in that the police apparently had the (potentially exculpatory) information available to provide to the prosecutor when asked (within a days time, so the investigation had obviously been already completed).
There is some fault to be seen on the part of the prosecutors as well, since they should have asked for information that any novice prosecutor would have had to have understood would be addressed by defense counsel.
This one also smells of a deliberate effort to railroad a man who was seen as a local nuisance. If he wasn’t breaking any other laws, even charges that police seemed to have known were suspect (why else would they withhold information which was obviously substantial enough to get the cased dropped) might have been quietly viewed as a way to get the guy out of their hair, once and for all.
I don’t know about the attitudes of people in and around Melbourne, but this sort of case would play well before most US civil juries, and the wrongfully imprisoned homeless man, unjustly deprived of his worldly possessions, would likely walk out of court a millionaire.
Porky D,
We're prepared for that actually. But thanks for the concern.
@ E. Steven Berkimer
Good to know.
I'm from Australia, and can assure you - if you think things are bad for males in America, it's a Paradise in comparison with Australia, especially as regards sexual assault.
No matter what you do, you'll be found guilty, either by the incredibly lax courts or the incredibly gullible media. In either case, your life is over.
This case I can well remember - the local council wanted to get rid of this guy. He was living in a sort of sandstone cave, overlooking a well known beach (Bondi). The local council (run by a full-on Feminist) hated the guy's presence. It seems strange that a few days after the media was flooded with stories about how the local council wanted him out of the cave, suddenly this False Rape accusation pops up.
Almost immediately, the guy's possessions were removed from the cave and thrown into a dumpster. The media could not fall over themselves fast enough to report the accusations. The accusations, as ever, went unquestioned.
Your story, about how the female was a lunatic and had made countless false accusations against men before worries me simply because that female is now "out there". She will accuse others. The next time, the man may well go to prison for an extended period of time. Remember - in Australia, the standard of evidence to obtain a conviction in a sexual assault case in in free-fall. Faster than the United States, too. And has been since the early 1970's.
This case is merely the most recent in a a long list of egregious cases.
In one other case, a man was having sex with his partner (a woman). She told him to stop. He said he stopped immediately. She said he took 30 seconds to stop. He went to prison for 4 years.
Only recently, she admitted she made the whole thing up (quote) [and] the whole incident was a set-up orchestrated by [the woman] to have [the man] charged with sexual assault to get him out of the house they were sharing.
http://www.australian-news.com.au/anti_male.htm
The Feminists practice their foul stuff in Australia, before transferring it to the US and Europe.
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