After reading the newly publicly available dossier detailing historic rape allegations against the former attorney-general, Victor Kline and party member for Robertson, Vania Holt, have announced that they have launched a private legal case. Both have extensive experience in this space, having left prosecutor roles in favour of politics. 

While Mr Kline will not run the legal action – opting instead to stay apart so that he could continue commenting on the allegations – Ms Holt will be taking on the role of instructing solicitor, assisted by new law graduate Eric Zhang. They will work with criminal barrister Mark Higgins and senior sex crimes detective Susan Campbell. 

“For those who say we are prosecuting [Mr] Porter for political gain, be assured we are doing it for [AB] and for the justice of the situation, which screams out for it. And for every single woman whom ‘the Honourable’ swinging dicks have humiliated and abused inside and outside of Parliament,” Mr Kline tweeted recently. 

The woman at the centre of the allegations – known as AB to the courts at request of her family – took her life last year after withdrawing a statement made to police. The dossier in full was recently released by the Federal Court following the conclusion of legal action launched against Christian Porter’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou. 

In the dossier, AB alleged she had been raped three times by Mr Porter in the early hours of 10 January 1988 and questioned whether date-rape drugs were used. The allegations have been strenuously denied by Mr Porter, who has recently launched appeal documents to reinstate Ms Chrysanthou’s ability to act for him. 

In an opinion piece, Mr Kline said that as former prosecutors, he and Ms Holt knew that the strongest piece of evidence in many cases is something the accused might have said inadvertently during a police interview. This, he added, was “about as standard practice as there can be in a criminal case” but is missing in this instance. 

“It didn’t make sense. But what did make sense was that justice demanded this case follow due process and go before a judge and jury. And what was entirely obvious was that no one in the police authorities in NSW was going to make that happen,” Mr Kline wrote, adding that the police had failed to give the NSW Department of Public Prosecutions the opportunity to “do their job” by shutting down a “strong” case. 

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Mr Porter’s solicitor Rebekah Giles, who represented him in his defamation action against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for an article that did not name him, has told media that Mr Kline’s move was a “stunt”, given that there is a “broad acceptance… that the credibility of the allegations is such that they are incapable of proof to any applicable legal standard criminal or civil”.

More to come. 

Help is available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Respect on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732). Every law society and bar association of each state also has further contacts available on their respective websites.