Piers Akerman: Christian Porter pile-on has echoes of Pell case

The presumption of innocence goes out the window once they start baying and unfortunately the woke are all too eager to adopt the customs of the lynch mob.

The pursuit of Attorney-General Christian Porter over an alleged rape 33 years ago is like a re-run of the witch hunt conducted by the ABC and Nine media against Cardinal George Pell – and we know how that ended.

The High Court found that the Victorian legal system, presented with an unsound case by the Victorian police, failed at almost every step in what appeared to be an almost insane desire to punish a senior Roman Catholic cleric.

In pursuing Cardinal Pell, the Victorian police and prosecution relied entirely on the complainant “being accepted, beyond reasonable doubt, as a credible and reliable witness” without there being any independent support.

In the current furore, there is no complainant and no complaint. There is no case for authorities to make.

Attorney-General Christian Porter at a media conference on March 3 where he confirmed he was the cabinet minister named in a historical rape allegation. Picture: Getty

There are however a number of powerful media and political figures and a long and in parts, inaccurate, document prepared by an anonymous person or persons, who believe that they are acting in the best interests of a mentally-disturbed woman, one of whose last wishes was emailed to the NSW Police a day before she committed suicide on June 24 and stated that she didn’t want to proceed with a sexual assault complaint.

But having no case, no grounds and no standing will not stop the ABC or others who have apparently become intoxicated by the visions of themselves stridently denouncing Mr Porter on television, in print and in the newspapers until he or the government of which he is the most senior legal figure, crumbles.

They may think they are standing for justice but they are actually representing the forces of barbarism.

They cannot find a legitimate reason to pursue Mr Porter so they have descended to the same depths of illegitimacy as the arsonist rioters in Seattle (with whose views they may probably have some sympathy) and with those who invaded the Capitol building in Washington (whose cause they would undoubtedly spurn).

Scott Morrison this week, after it was announced Sex Discrimination Minister Kate Jenkins has been appointed to review workplace culture at Parliament House. Picture: Getty

Those in the media who have seized upon this case and challenged Prime Minister Scott Morrison ignore or are ignorant of the legal system which the alleged victim was engaged with before deciding not to ask the NSW police to lay any charges.

Nor did they report, as Chris Kenny did on Sky News, that the anonymous letter said that before she died, the alleged victim’s parents worried about her reliability as a witness: “They worried that she may have confected or embellished the allegations due to her mental illness.”.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Opposition leader Anthony Albanese and Labor Senator Penny Wong are equally culpable in this with Mr Turnbull, who enjoyed a brief legal career in which he challenged the British establishment, going so far as to suggest there may be something more sinister about the nature of the alleged victim’s suicide.

But this woke embrace of the vibe gets even worse with the revelation that the head of law firm, MinterEllison, which represents Mr Porter, sent an email to staff in which she said that association with the Attorney-General had “triggered hurt” for her.

MinterEllison chief executive Annette Kimmitt’s email to staff caused division at her firm.

According to The Australian, MinterEllison chief executive Annette Kimmitt emailed the firm’s 2500 staff on Wednesday morning apologising for any “pain” they might be experiencing as a result of its representation of Mr Porter.

Ms Kimmitt does not have a law degree.

Fortunately senior partners at the law firm, the largest in the nation, have informed her that the firm’s employment lawyers regularly act for executives accused of sexual harassment and bullying.

In medieval Europe, religious zealots claimed to be able to detect witches and numerous people, mainly women, were tortured before being horribly executed.

In parts of the world there are still people who believe that witchcraft is responsible for various conditions, even death and rely on witch smellers or sniffers to out the evil doers.

It would seem that this dark fantasy remains a reality within the ABC with its collective of witch sniffers determined to root out evil wherever they perceive it.

The presumption of innocence goes out the window once they start baying and unfortunately the woke are all too eager to adopt the customs of the lynch mob.