‘Wolf’ sues over police handling of failed S&M rape case

A Sydney man prosecuted for rape over his participation in a sadomasochistic sex group is suing the NSW government.

Businessman Liam Murphy, aka ‘The Wolf’, at Walsh Bay in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

A Sydney man prosecuted for rape over his participation in a sadomasochistic sex group is suing the NSW government, alleging police deliberately suppressed evidence of his innocence in a case that later collapsed.

Liam Murphy, a marketing manager who arranged S&M encounters with women under the name “The Wolf” through an online community, faced court last year on charges of sexually ­assaulting two women, but a magistrate dismissed the case after evidence emerged of them thanking him for the experience.

In his statement of claim, Mr Murphy said the women’s alle­gations were contradicted by their text messages and social media posts, and by videos and multiple witnesses, which police knew about but “wilfully concealed” from prosecutors or the court.

He said he offered to show police exculpatory messages from the women on his phone and laptop, but they rejected the offer and claimed they could not retrieve the messages from one woman’s phone, later admitting they had not asked for her password.

Mr Murphy was arrested in Oct­ober 2016 while driving his daughter to day­care, and faced committal proceedings in March last year on charges of rape, sexual assault and assault.

The women acknowledged they had arranged to meet him in Sydney hotels for sadomasochistic encounters but alleged he overstepped their agreement, caus­ing them mental and physical injuries.

Liam Gordon Murphy leaves the Downing Centre Courts with his Barrister Charles Waterstreet in August last year. Picture: AAP

Magistrate Christopher Halburd dismissed the case in June 2018, citing a raft of issues ­in­cluding that one woman sent Mr Murphy messages after the ­encounter, saying “Thanks for having me” and “I like the way you bring out a different aspect of me”.

She later met him for two more sexual encounters.

The other woman had instructed him to “really scare me” before meeting him and sent him a message afterwards saying it was great to see him.

In court, she accused him of failing to heed a “safe word” to stop hitting her, but this was contradicted by a text message that acknowledged they did not use safe words because “I’ve ­always trusted you”.

The magistrate noted that ­because violence was intrinsic to the S&M scene, conventional ­notions of consent did not necessarily apply.

He cited video evidence of Mr Murphy’s previous encounters with one of the alleged ­victims, which were consensual despite her crying and saying “no more please”.

In the encounter about which she complained, she had either faked or achieved an ­orgasm.

In his statement of claim, filed with the NSW Supreme Court last week, Mr Murphy alleges that the ­allegations were orchestrated to gain publicity and notoriety for a film documentary the two women were making about their relationship with an S&M “lord and ­master” hostile to ­Mr Murphy.

He says the stress derailed his career and caused him to become suicidal and depressed.

Contacted by The Australian, he said police had reduced his life to “rubble” and ignored his ­complaints about the invest­igation, leaving him no choice but to sue.

“The officers … knew the allegations against me were false but chose to bring the charges anyway, and then they proceeded to hide evidence, ignore evidence and intimidate defence witnesses,” he said.

A spokesperson for NSW police was unable to comment.