A (3:17)

Everyone else drifted off, right?

B (3:18)

And everyone else is gone.

A (3:20)

Around that time that people were drifting off, these two, Luke and Sean, were watching porn, I guess, on a phone.

B (3:25)

Luke was watching porn with this other guy who was actually the boyfriend of the 21st birthday girl. We weren't able to verify whether Sean was. Was involved in that. But, yeah, this court testimony around the porn watching, and I don't know what they're watching, but it was making them laugh and they would.

A (3:41)

It feels ominous. And then people just wander out as they do wander home, whatever. But she's then in the caravan with the two boys, Luke and Sean.

B (3:49)

Yep.

A (3:50)

Now, we have two options here. Would you like me, Would you like to tell us what happened, or would you like us to drop in a grab from the show?

B (3:57)

I can play the show. We think it's important to describe exactly what happened next, but it does contain details of sexual assault, so if it's too much, just skip forward. When Luke gets onto the bed beside Elise, she immediately rolls away from him, but she comes up against Sean because he's on her other side. Luke suggests a threesome, and Elise says, no, no way. And then Luke puts his hands under her shirt and she says no and tries to elbow him away. Now Sean has his hand inside Elise's underpants and he's kissing her face and neck.

D (4:42)

Once I realized where their hands were going and the intention of what was, like, going to happen, it like. Yeah, it was not good. It was not good. Yeah, it was pretty fucking brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone knows what happened.

B (5:14)

Luke gets up on his knees and he pulls off Elise's jeans and he rapes her. While this is occurring, Sean has a hold of Elise's hand and places it on his penis. Immediately after Luke finishes, he leaves the Caravan.

D (5:37)

It was the way they were talking to each other and about me that just made me feel sick to my stomach.

B (5:47)

And just before he exits, he turns to Sean and he mutters something along the lines of, she's all yours.

D (5:54)

You know, I'm all done, your turn now. And he just left the door wide open. Like just zero care, Elise tries to

B (6:04)

roll into the blankets but is unsuccessful. Sean takes his turn next and stops only when Elise pushes with all her might against his chest.

A (6:17)

Directly after, she's been raped by two friends at a party, she started calling her friends. She's alone in the caravan by this stage. She's thinking, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. She starts calling people. It's four in the morning, something. So Rosie, her friend, answers, and Rosie's mum, which seems like a great thing, is the district nurse. She's a nurse. So Elise knows this lady and also knows that professionally she will help her.

C (6:42)

Yeah.

A (6:42)

And they get in the car and they go straight over there and they pick her up, taking her back to her own home, wrapped her in blankets and saying to her, we need to go to the police. And I'm just cheering at that point, thinking, what a great woman. Fantastic. Lisa, the district nurse, Lisa Hutchins, she's actually related to Luke, one of the offenders, but also very close family friends. Lisa gives a statement to police and she just tells the story that we've heard that you shared with us earlier, that, yes, I picked her up, I took her back to my house, this is what she said, and I took her to the police. Very straightforward.

B (7:16)

And the key thing is that she says that Elise told her she'd been raped and that it was Luke and Sean who'd raped her.

A (7:23)

Yeah. But then Lisa starts. This is where Lisa, kind of the first wobble, I think, is she says to police, but I just don't think Luke's capable.

B (7:31)

Hmm. Yeah. She says that to Geoff Bartram, the community cop, as she's signing her statement. So this is a moment where it's sort of an administrative thing that he's come down to get her signature on this statement that she's already given to Alison, the detective, over the phone. So it's just this sort of throwaway comment after signing it. I don't want to change my statement, but I just don't believe he's guilty of that.

C (7:52)

I just don't think he could have done that. I think it was what she said

B (7:56)

and Geoff is sort of just like, sorry, what?

C (7:59)

Like you're signing a statement to say this is what happened, but then you're also saying this, that you don't believe it. And so the cracks are starting to appear. And that was probably six weeks after the incident. So there'd been some dust settling time.

A (8:13)

Yep.

C (8:14)

And in court, Lisa talks about speaking with Luke, that his mother asked her to go and speak with him and check on him and see if he was okay, and that he'd said that he had not done it. And so there was sort of a parallel investigation going on there, if you like. Taking it upon herself to find out what had occurred from the men's perspective. And at that time that that was happening, the family of the victim were told by police, say nothing, stay home, don't get into any, you know, thing. And obviously it's very difficult for them, like to go down the street. And. And that also meant that there was an information vacuum.

A (8:52)

Yeah.

C (8:52)

Which allowed the men's narrative to take hold.

A (9:07)

So it gets to court and Lisa Hutchins, the nurse, she is a witness for the prosecution. She just, again, just reiterates what she had said in her statement. Basically. Right, we picked her up and.

B (9:20)

Yeah, she does to a point, although that it has to be coaxed out of her.

A (9:24)

She eventually admits Elise told her she

B (9:27)

was raped, which is what the prosecutor's point is, the point for. He's like, can you just tell me this one thing, please?

A (9:33)

Did she say on that morning when you picked her up that she was raped? Yes, she did. So then the two men give evidence. Sean and Luke give evidence. Sean says the threesome was Elise's idea. The idea of having a threesome was Elise's. And Luke, though, takes a stand and admits that it was his idea, that he suggested it.

B (9:52)

Yeah, I think the defence team described that as a wrinkle in the evidence from Sean.

C (9:57)

I think the inconsistency was the point of it.

B (10:00)

I think they wanted to.

C (10:01)

And it's like, if it's true, then you would have the same story.

B (10:04)

I think they made a decision that, okay, no, we can't go with that, with what Sean says, which is that it's Elisa's idea, because clearly it wasn't. And it's totally out of, you know, step with what she said and. And the whole idea of consent. So, yeah, I think the defence. I don't know exactly. But the defence lawyer makes the decision that we need to put this out there, that actually it was Luke's idea just to keep things on an even keel. So he does accept that but then, yeah, the prosecutor goes in with Sean. With Sean, yeah. With the idea that, well, that's a green light, isn't it, to sex? And why would you never have mentioned that before, that it was Elise's idea?

C (10:39)

But, yeah, it felt like it was being made up on the hop.

A (10:42)

Well, there was a lot of that. I think there was a lot of that sort of reflecting on the statements that were taken at the time and then the evidence people were giving in court. There seemed to be a lot of. Hang on.

B (10:51)

Yeah. Or at the end of the day, you need to decide who you believe here.

A (10:54)

Yeah.

B (10:55)

And the prosecution's argument to the jury is Elise has always been consistent with her story from the get go. She's done it again in court. You just need to decide whether you believe her.

A (11:06)

So the jury, in the end, didn't seem to struggle with reaching a guilty verdict for both men.

B (11:12)

No, it wasn't. It didn't take an enormous amount of time. And they came back with guilty on

A (11:17)

all counts, which is great. Sounds like a victory. Sounds like, you know, common sense and all of that. Their sentences. Sean was given five years, eight months on the top and three years and four months on the bottom. And Luke, four years, 10 months on the top, two years, 10 months on the bottom. So sort of happy days. I mean, we're never happy with the sentencing for sexual offenders, to be honest. Well, I'm not. I won't speak for you, but. So that seems like a successful conviction.

C (11:43)

So the day after the men go to prison.

A (11:45)

Yeah.

C (11:45)

So it's real now, right? They are in prison, these two young men from the town.

B (11:50)

Yes. And they've been sentenced for years. Yeah.

C (11:52)

And it's years. Lisa said that she attempted to contact the informant, couldn't get through and so she ends up going to the defence team to make a new statement. And that new statement will completely turn everything on its head. And it revolves around two words that she says. She recalls being said on the night in question when she picked Elise up from the caravan, Luke Mabie.

B (12:19)

And the question to that, to get that answer, is, did you consent to this? According to Lisa's statement, did you consent to this act? And then she's saying that Elise is standing there sort of umming and ahhing and saying, luke maybe, but not Shaun.

A (12:33)

Now, she has never mentioned that before. Lisa has never mentioned that when interviewed by police. When interviewed, working with the prosecutors.

B (12:40)

No.

A (12:41)

When they were prepping her, she'd never mentioned that this happened before.

C (12:44)

No. At no point until the men went to prison did this new statement arrive? So we can't speak to the motivation for that new statement, but it definitely was an absolute game changer because the Court of Appeal decided that it was enough to grant the men a new trial. And so they were released from prison.

A (13:05)

From prison.

B (13:05)

And that a miscarriage of justice has taken place because the first jury wasn't aware of this information.

A (13:10)

Their release didn't happen overnight. I mean, so. And that's important because what was about 19 months they spent in jail while this process was working its way out.

B (13:20)

That's right, yeah. So the statement's the day after they're jailed. But obviously the defence has to mount, you know, an argument for an appeal. The appeal has to be heard. But when the appeal actually was heard, it was immediate that they were released. Yeah.

C (13:34)

And so they ended up serving around half their minimum sentence at this point.

A (13:38)

So then they're released, they go back to their communities. So they go to trial, they have a second trial. And now this time around, Lisa is a witness for the defence. And at this point she starts bringing up some other stuff she's never mentioned before, such as Elise was flirtatious with a number of males at the party.

C (13:58)

Yeah.

B (13:58)

And this kind of is volunteered by Lisa.

A (14:02)

She's not asked that question.

B (14:04)

She's sort of asked about what she remembers from the party, just generally. And that's what she comes out with immediately.

C (14:10)

Amorous. Flirtatious.

A (14:12)

And the prosecutor. Yeah. Put the brakes on and said, that is a scandalous accusation to make here and now.

B (14:18)

Has no relevance whatsoever, but is also.

A (14:20)

But very powerful.

C (14:22)

Yeah.

B (14:22)

What are you doing here?

A (14:24)

What about when she said the bombshell that. She said that she remembers Elise saying, when she asked Elise, did you give consent? Elise sort of said no. Well, Luke maybe, but not Shawn. This was the bombshell. New evidence that enabled these guys to get another trial. How was that handled?

C (14:41)

Well, this is the moment to test that.

B (14:43)

Yeah. And to be honest, it was a bit of a anti climax for me because I was watching it in court and I was like, what's going to happen when they get to that part is the moment. And she kind of just said it in a similar. Almost exactly the same way as in her statement. And then. Yeah, it gets more interesting when it's under cross examination, because then Sarah Thomas, the veteran barrister, just slowly sort of whittles away, basically, at this witness's credibility in front of the jury. Yeah. As far as the prosecutor's concerned, it's like, well, we've got Elise, she's still there. With her consistent statement, with this consistent testimony that she's been, you know, repeating year on year since the minutes after this happened, you make a choice between her and what she's said and this woman who is not a witness of truth. So she kind of pits the two women against each other to the jury. There's no reason that you should believe this woman.

A (15:41)

They were found guilty for a second time, but sentencing controversial. This is a full seven years, by the way, after the party, isn't it?

B (15:49)

It is, yeah. So they weren't sentenced until April 2023. There was an expectation definitely on the part of the prosecution that they would serve more jail time. So these were serious charges and they're serious crimes.

A (16:03)

But in any case, the judge decided to go ahead and give them the community orders, no more jail time. So in the end, they served that initial 19 months jail time for raping Elise.

B (16:14)

They did, yep.

C (16:16)

After the last episode came out and it kind of went crazy, like it was at the top of the Reddit forums and people were like laying into the place and saying pretty full on stuff on Reddit. And I actually said to Charlotte, like, I don't like that because there are lots of great people in Balmoral who didn't agree with what happened there.

A (16:36)

And also, as we've said, I don't think it's about that place. No, so much of it is not about that place.

C (16:42)

Absolutely not.

A (16:43)

Yeah.

C (16:44)

So it did feel like a bit of a mob. But then this thing did happen.

A (16:48)

Yes.

C (16:48)

And it was very, very hard to find supporters of Elise in the town. You could count them on one hand.

A (16:58)

Thank you so much. The podcast is excellent. I was so. I couldn't wait to talk to you about it. The twists and turns, it's like a movie or a TV miniseries, but it's very, very real and as I said, very relatable, I think, to most women, to be honest. I think most of us have found ourselves, as I said, in situations that may not have escalated the way Elisa's did. But, yeah, I think it all sounds very familiar to most of us. So congratulations. Well done. Thanks for joining us on Australian True Crime. If you would like any more information about anything you've heard on the show today or support numbers, just check out the show notes.

B (17:38)

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders, past, present and those emerging.