Should Victims Be The Focus In Court?
6/7/202647 min
After surviving a violent stranger attack, Sarah Lavis reflects on her experience as a victim and what it revealed about the gap between how the criminal justice system works and how it is understood by those outside it.
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CREDITS:
Host: Meshel Laurie
Guest: Sarah Lavis
Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMeshel Laurie· Host0:00
[gentle music] This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Lawrie. Some of our most memorable episodes have come about because listeners sent us their stories. Today's guest did just that. Her name is Sarah Lavis, and she woke up one night to the worst nightmare imaginable. She joins us to talk about it. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning: this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence. Sarah, I wanted to start with reading out the email that you sent us, and I'll tell you why, because, uh, it's the shortest and most impactful email [laughs] I think I've ever received. It's like, it's so short, and yet when you- by the end of it, you're like, "Whoa, that is, uh, full-on." "Hi, Michelle. Listening to your recent podcast, I found it interesting about the two camps of the courtroom being more victim-centric versus not." So we talk about that a lot, obviously. You- Mm ... you've noticed.
Sarah Lavis· Guest1:10
Yep.
Meshel Laurie· Host1:10
You've picked up on that. Um, 'cause a lot of victims, victims' families say it's all about the offender. Um, and Charlie Bezzina, our lovely friend, former homicide detective, says he wishes that there were photos of the, um, victims in the court so everyone could remember who it's really about. So that's the sort of, they're the conversations we've been having. Lex