$600k fight for innocence: The financial and mental toll to get not guilty verdict

The father of a Sydney engineering student acquitted of sexual assault says the ordeal coast him $600,000 in legal bills to prove his son’s innocence, and robbed his boy of the best years of his life.

The father of a Sydney man acquitted of sexual assault has told The Daily Telegraph of the legal processes immense financial and mental toll on his son.

The father of a Sydney engineering student acquitted of sexual assault says the ordeal cost him $600,000 in legal bills to prove his son was not guilty, and robbed his boy of the best years of his life.

The man, who asked to be known only as Len, said his son suffers severe depression and post traumatic stress disorder from six years of fighting the sex charges he claims should never have been pursued.

Len’s son was 21-years-old and studying at the University of Sydney when he attended a party at a mate’s beach house in 2017, and was later charged with sexually and indecently assaulting a young woman whom he’d known as a friend for many years.

It took six years, two trials and an appeal, plus $600,000 for Len’s son to be cleared of the heinous crime.

“It defies imagination. The fact of the matter is we are fortunate I could afford to fight this, but a lot of people can’t, and that’s just not right,” Len said.

Len said the cases of his son and former Wallabies star Kurtley Beale (pictured) have similarities. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

“The cost issue is a denial of natural justice. It certainly is the case that justice is only available for the wealthy.”

The District Court in Gosford found Len’s son guilty of sexual intercourse without consent at the first trial in 2019, but his conviction was later quashed at an appeal.

Within five minutes of being sent out to deliberate, a jury at the second trial found Len’s son not guilty of all three charges.

Len claims the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution should never have pursued the case in the first place, and that it should have been thrown out when his son’s team made a no bill application shortly before the second trial began.

Director of Public Prosecution Sally Dowling SC.

He’s called on the Director Sally Dowling SC to reveal how many cases have had a no bill application – where the defendant presents all their evidence and attempts to have the matter thrown out – but have still gone to trial and returned not guilty verdicts.

“Both my son … and Kurtley Beale is another example, made no bill applications which were rejected by the DPP, and both got not guilty verdicts. I’d argue these applications should be looked at by an independent barrister,” Len said.

The DPP announced last month it would carry out an audit of more than 400 sexual assault cases set down for trial this year, after criticism from four separate judges and claims of ‘meritless’ matters being pursued, unrelated and separate to Len’s son’s matter.

Len will have his son’s case will be back in court later this year when he seeks orders that the state pay some of the costs from the second trial, but he says no amount of reimbursement will repair the damage to his son.

“They say innocent until proven guilty, that’s crap. He was guilty until he could prove his innocence. People abandoned him, he got severe, severe depression. At one stage he was on seven different forms of medication,” Len said.

“My son went to The Gap, that’s how close I came to losing him.”

An ODPP spokesperson said it gave “careful consideration to all defence applications to discontinue proceedings, in accordance with the Prosecution Guidelines.”

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