Bringing in experienced women, almost by definition, more expert in sexual assault, would be a useful antidote to the fact that the senior ACT supervisors, who plainly took the lead in trying to stymie any prosecution, were all men. People who formed a collective view – which in police hierarchies almost invariably means from the top down. Views characterised by the DPP as not being any sort of objective briefing but “a clear and overt attempt to use loaded characterisations of some very select evidence in an attempt to get me to agree with a position the police had clearly adopted”. At further meetings, police were said to have cherry-picked selective evidence, with “blatant misrepresentations of evidence” claimed to be damaging to the complainant.

Introducing the professional views, actual expertise and experience of women, whether as police investigators or as prosecutors with a working knowledge of a credible case, might be the novel ingredient this melodrama has so far missed.

Source: Please don’t mention guilt or innocence while asking if there was a case to answer – Pearls and Irritations