Christian Porter rape allegations: Kate’s dossier of tragedy
Chilling and never-before-published details from Christian Porter’s accuser revealed for the first time so readers can judge for themselves.
It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister chose not to read the dossier compiled by Kate, the woman who alleged Christian Porter raped her 33 years ago when she was 16 and he was 17. The dossier was sent anonymously to Scott Morrison, Penny Wong and Sarah Hanson-Young by the woman’s friends after she took her own life in June 2020.
It is hard to read. But had Morrison bothered to read Kate’s statement before listening to the Attorney-General’s version of events, his decision to reject calls for an inquiry would have been better informed.
No one can claim to know what happened in the early hours of January 10, 1988, between Kate and Porter. Their accounts are diametrically opposed. But what is clear is that Kate’s friends released this information into the public realm, and the media, especially the ABC, has chosen to reproduce only parts of Kate’s statement that serve their pursuit of Porter, even after she told police she wanted to withdraw her complaint and the decision of NSW Police not to pursue the matter.
Kate, by all reports, was a champion debater. A smart, witty, brilliant young student. As a member of the Australian schools debating team two years in a row, high expectations surrounded her. There was talk among her friends she could become Australia’s first female prime minister. Instead, Kate’s life spiralled downward. She suffered from long bouts of serious mental illness.
Her life and death are a tragedy. Especially for her family, who have expressed concerns that, perhaps due to mental illness that included a bipolar disorder, she may have imagined the rape. They didn’t want Kate’s claims to go public.
And no one wants to add to their grief. Or the grief of former high school friends, though many of them appear to have lost contact with Kate for most if not all of the past 30 years.
But the vicious, often hysterical and emotional public sham trial of Porter ignores why we have a legal system — to test very serious accusations such as rape by amassing evidence to determine guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
We detail below far more material than has been disclosed to date by any other media organisation, despite many inside the political and media beltway having access to it. Now readers can judge for themselves.
We lay out below the four sources of material compiled by Kate in the order in which they were created. The dossier says: “To be submitted to the South Australian Police 28 February 2020.” It was forwarded to the AFP by those who received it.
None of the material in the dossier is contemporaneous to the alleged crime. This is an important point. The first three sources — Kate’s Princeton Diary, Kate’s “F..k it” note, and 11 ripped pages from Kate’s “Food Journal” — were written one to four years after the alleged assault.
The other part of the dossier is Kate’s typed statement. It was compiled, along with her transcriptions of the first three sources, after she attended sessions with Sydney psychologist Katie Thorncraft in September 2019 and Adelaide psychiatrist Dr Tony Davis in late 2019.
Princeton Diary
Kate says her Princeton Diary was “created circa 1989” and that photos of four pages were taken on February 19, 2020, and transcribed November 25-26, 2019. Each page of the “scratched entries” is covered over in thick blue highlighter pen, making it hard to decipher. The reference to “James” is James Hooke, her former teenage boyfriend.
“How can I tell this tale? Who to? James – maybe [?] him – if we ever get back together, I’ll have to tell him [.] Before then or After–1 way or the other??? But we won’t [??? ..] together. I’m too damaged [?] might [?] [final line] F..K IT WHY
“What did I do? Porter will say I led him on — did I? I said NO — I said NO. To the blow job. He never asked about the rest. Just did it & took what he wanted. Me. My virginity & my voice. What a Prick.”
“F..k It” Note
What follows is what Kate calls the “F..k It” note that she says was written in January 1991 and included in her dossier for police after she found it in mid-2019. The description of the note says: “transcribed by me in July 2020”. Kate took her own life prior to that, in June of 2020. Hence the below transcriptions were either done by someone else, or, if done by Kate, the date is incorrect. It notes that some of the original pencilled words were traced over in black pen before then being rubbed out.
Below are the horizontal words in the middle of the page transcribed from the original 1991 document:
“I don’t know & I can’t explain it to you even if I did know. It’s either as simple & facile an explanation as ‘I was drunk’ or I can go into my psyche up to the elbows & drag out some reason but either way & [?] I’ll never explain it to you properly. You’ll have to do that for yourself.”
Below are the words that formed concentric circles transcribed from the 1991 document:
“HE LOVED ME? IN AUG 88. IN JAN 89. HE MUST HAVE. HE SAID SO. HE MEANT IT. I FELT IT. I KNOW HIM. HE KNEW ME. I CAN TRUST HIM. HE’D HELP ME. HE WOULD — I JUST NEED 2 LET GO. S/1 ELSE NEEDS TO KNOW. IT CAN BE HIM. SO WHAT IF HE RECOILS? THEN, @ L, I’D KNO. IT WILL B A 1St STEP ON THE NEC PATH. NECESSE EST. MAYBE WRITE TO HIM IN LATIN? MAKE IT A GAME, A PUZZLE. HE MIGHT EVEN APPRECIATE THE CHANCE TO USE HIS BRAIN ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN SKIRT CHASING. HE’S SMARTER THAN HE GIVES H’SELF CREDIT 4. NOT QUITE AS CLEVER AS YOU BUT THAT’S GOOD. HE WON’T CUT H’SELF ON HIS MIND’S RAZOR SHARP EDGES à THE WAY YOU DO ON YRS. F..K IT WOMAN. JUST TELL HIM. HE WAS GOOD 2 U. SO WHAT ABOUT the kid? THERE’S STILL TIME 4 THAT – 1 DAY – THAT’S WAT HE PROMISED U @ ANU. GET THRO’ UNI, GROW UP – THEN SEE IF IT STILL BURNS. IT NOT, HE’LL B A GOOD FRIEND & THAT’S BETTER THAN A LOVER & LONGER-LASTING. “1 of the GIRLS”. HE MIGHT EVEN LIKE THAT! J YOU GAVE HIM HEAD OFTEN ENOUGH (DID HE EVER REPAY that fave? Don’t think so ... Little shit...ASK 4 his help or you’ll end up in a ditch s/where. He hates Xtn already – no? MORE REASON 2 REACH 4 HIM. J. HELP ME Honey.”
Food Journal
Kate says she took photos on February 19, 2020, of 11 pages from what she called her Food Journal that she kept in 1990-1991 or “possibly in 1992”. There is one single word on each page:
“I [o?] [n?] don’t want to
Xtian [Christian] [.]
Pl[ea]se do not take me [.]
88 [1988] I [January, the first month indicated by my using a lower case Roman-numeral].”
Kate’s typed statement written more than
30 years later
Having collected the above material in mid to late 2019, Kate typed a statement to be submitted to the police.
Before setting out her allegations, Kate writes: “I have always remembered these things. I had a better understanding of these memories, and only really understood them, once my Sydney-based psychologist Katie Thorncraft referred me to The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Van Der Kolk.) … our bodies will store traumatic events and only allow them to resurface when our minds are able to examine them.”
As Richard Guilliatt reported last week in The Weekend Australian: “This theory is controversial because it harks back to the recovered memory phenomenon of the 1980s and 90s, which caused an epidemic of false and unreliable recollections of sexual abuse.”
Kate’s claims are as follows:
“Given the surreal quality to my memories of his raping me, and the dissociative states that I have (and still) experience, I suspect that CP put some sort of date-rape style drug into my drink” when they were at the Hard Rock Cafe in Kings Cross.
“CP walked me back to my room in Women’s College … CP propositioned me, asking ‘How about a pearl necklace?’, I agreed to do this.
“He then forced me to perform oral sex on him ... he had his hands around my throat, I thought that he would choke me to death ... I remember that I vomited ...”
Kate then describes a ritualised form of behaviour by the 17-year-old Porter: “CP then took me from my bedroom to a bathroom … and made me have a bath or a shower.”
Porter “undressed me”, “brushed my teeth”, wrote ‘Christian Porter was ’ere Jan 88’ in the steam on the mirror”, “soaped and washed me with a flannel”, “washed and conditioned my hair”, “shaved my legs and under my arms” and “spent a lot of time washing my anus”…“he was a bit impatient but still shampooed my hair twice”.
“CP took me back to my room and dressed me in my nightie and a clean pair of underpants”… “we got into my bed together and I fell asleep”. “I woke up to CP anally raping me” noting “he did not use a lubricant or a condom” and it was “extremely painful”.
The next day, Kate writes, “All I could cope with, as I remembered parts of the night before, gingerly, was the idea that things had gone ‘a bit too far’ with CP, the previous evening. But it was ok, I reassured myself, because we were going to get married — one day. CP had implied this to me on the previous afternoon, when I was ironing his shirt.”
After the alleged rape, Kate writes about “the last time I saw CP”. She had dinner with Porter, in Perth, almost six years later where, she says, Porter propositioned her, but nothing happened.
The question readers might now want to ask themselves is does Kate’s dossier raise doubts about what has been alleged against Porter?
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This is an edited version of some of Kate’s words in the dossier to remove explicit and graphic details. If this story has raised issues for you, contact Lifeline on 131 114.