This is Sydney man Boyd Kramer. He's from a wealthy family, a former national water polo player, and a convicted rapist. On 14 February 2022, he was found guilty by a jury of one count of sexual intercourse without consent. He really doesn't want you to find out about that. Heck, you should probably stop reading this now.
I'll skip over the details of the case, trial and aftermath, which you can read here, except to note that well, call me a naive little chicken, but I was appalled by the line of questioning of the victim by Mr Kramer's defence barrister:
(FWIW, The barrister in question, one of NSW's most prominent criminal barristers, has been named as one of the front runners to defend Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones on his sex abuse charges).
In the end, Mr Kramer was found guilty and sentenced to 300 hours of community service. He would never serve any time in jail.
The victim in this case, Madeleine Lane, bravely came forward to share her name and story, highlighting the manifest inadequacy of Kramer's sentence.
And Mr Kramer, having escaped thelion's den with a mere community service order, decided to go back for his hat. Kramer engaged his lawyers to threaten news.com.au and journalist Nina Funnell with legal action unless they immediately take down the articles involved. Bizarrely, Kramer's justification for demanding the article be removed is that it breaches statutory non-publication orders over the victim’s name, said orders preventing public identification of victims in sexual assault cases in NSW, unless the victim gives consent for their identity to be made public. Madeleine Lane gave this consent and worked with Nina Funnell to have the article published. So is Mr Kramer trying to argue he's somehow protecting Ms Lane? To quote Ms Funnell:
“It’s nice that Mr Kramer appears concerned about his victim’s privacy, but as with other matters, he’d do well to pay attention to her wishes instead,” Ms Funnell said.
“Yet again he seems to have overlooked the central importance of a woman’s consent. It’s obviously not a strong suit.”
Of course, Boyd Kramer could give two tiny mouse droppings about Ms Lane's privacy or well being. He's trying to protect himself. He doesn't want his name published, his reputation tarnished - even though his name was publicly visible on records of his court proceedings.
Many people would think getting away from such a serious offence with a community service order was getting off extremely lightly. The Department of Public Prosecution appealed his sentence; by the time the case reached the Court of Appeal, Mr Kramer had served the hours of community service and the court ruled it would be punitive to sentence him further (umm, isn't that an important part of sentencing for serious crimes? Punishment?).
But Mr Kramer is still acting aggressively to protect his own reputation.
Remember convicted rapist Brock Turner? Who despite sexually assaulting a woman behind a dumpster, served only three months in jail because he was a champion swimmer with a bright future ahead of him?
Boyd Kramer is also a convicted rapist. And his status as a former Australian representative water polo player was one of the reasons cited in court for his lenient sentence. But the entitlement doesn't end there. He doesn't want his bright future spoiled by people knowing what he's done. So make sure you don't get his name out there. Convicted rapist Boyd Kramer wants this to all go away.
(And maybe Kramer and his lawyers thought "ooh, Murdoch money!" when they drafted their letters of demand. Me, I've got nothing, so threatening me with legal action would be out as financially fruitful as buying tickets for last week's lottery).
0 Comments:
Post a Comment