It doesn’t come as any surprise to discover that “Australian arts luminaries,” among them journalist, screenwriter, novelist and passionate Labor supporter Bob Ellis, allegedly sexually assaulted the young daughters of playwright Dorothy Hewitt. That this disclosure does not surprise (though it certainly horrifies) is in itself a cause for anger and sorrow.
That the assaults took place in the girls’ home and apparently with the acquiescence of both their mother and their father, adds another dimension of horror to a story that is sickeningly familiar in every demographic, and every time and place.
When such atrocities are disclosed, a common reaction is that we should let the courts decide who is telling the truth, and remember that everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence. In this case, some of the alleged perpetrators are dead, including Bob Ellis, and some are still living.
In an ideal world, if the law and the courts dealt at all fairly with victims of sexual assault, I’d agree that we should, if possible, leave the courts to determine innocence or guilt. But the justice system does not fairly deal with victims of this crime, as this article by Jane Gilmour explains. Rape victims who do report to police often describe the criminal justice system as “retraumatising.”
When the alleged perpetrators are dead, there’s no possibility of legal redress. However, this doesn’t mean we can’t decide who we believe. For example, I find the stories of Rozanne and Kate Lilley credible. I don’t find the suggestion that they’ve made the whole thing up in the least bit credible. Therefore, I exercise my right to decide whom to trust, and I trust the Lilley sisters.
The sisters have already become targets for social media trolls. They are “claiming to be victims,” it’s alleged. Well, no, they aren’t. They are simply telling their story. That story reveals hideous abuse and exploitation of two girls aged 13 and 15, by a group of celebrated and creative people who ought to have known better, and ought to have cared. They ought to have cared. And they didn’t. They wanted sex with children. So they had sex with children. Their creative accomplishments did not entitle them to have sex with children. The “bohemian” lifestyle they lived did not entitle them to have sex with children.
Yesterday I read on social media the opinion that because Ellis is dead, the sisters should have kept quiet. What this said to me is that to some people, living women matter so very, very much less than dead men. Since when does a man’s (or woman’s) notability entitle him or her to have their crimes and misdemeanours concealed by their victims?Since when must victims of notable people keep quiet, simply because the alleged perpetrator is notable?
I don’t know what these disclosures will do the legacy of Bob Ellis and feminist icon Dorothy Hewitt. Of far more concern to me is the wellbeing of Kate and Rozanne Lilley. Speaking out about sexual assault is an ordeal for anyone. That ordeal is inevitably compounded when the alleged perpetrators are public figures, or figures admired and respected in the community.
It’s something of a cop-out, I’d suggest, to respond to the sisters’ account of Ellis’s sexual predations with clichés about justice and the courts. We can decide if the story is credible without direction from a justice system that all too often miserably fails victims of sexual crimes. We can trust our own judgement and furthermore, we should have the courage to trust our own judgement. And having trusted ourselves, we can then decide how disclosure of alleged abhorrent sexual behaviour affects our feelings about the work of Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen, Bob Ellis, Morgan Freeman, Dorothy Hewitt, Junot Diaz and the rest of the lengthening list of creative stars who stand so accused.
No Place For Sheep 
Yes. Well said.
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According to this follow up they are not allegations they are facts that were well known at the time and I believe the women who are writing about but they both state it was not a pedophile ring but the times among the arts. I think all sex with children is abhorrent but don’t get the fixation with just Bob Ellis. Is it because we liked and trusted his shambolic life or his great writing skill and feel let down?
The questions I have asked over all these cases – Rolph Harris for one, is do these deeds cancel any talent or good they did in the following decades and I don’t think it does.
Let me explain as I am the one who Jennifer claims said the women should not mention it because Bob is dead – there are 5 reasons for this, 1 he is dead and cannot have a say in the truth or the lie of the story, as are others. He also has a wonderful wife and three daughters who may or may not have known about this – these women too are now victims of a fraud and awful abuse by their husband and father and have to live with it. Who knows thought they might have known.
Then there is the point about what Bob was doing when I met him – he spent his own time and money getting lawyers to save kids from the hell that was Woomera refugee prison, these kids had been locked up by our government for years while their dad lived in Sydney and he knew it was wrong.
He has immortalised the facts of their story in a book for which the kids are grateful, he got them scholarships in excellent schools, got them the sponsorship of Mike Rann and kept in touch for yonks after they were illegally deported.
Do these deeds and all his body of amazing work go away because yesterday we find out that not only did he commit a repugnant deed with one of the Lilley sisters but that the parents faciltitated it. For me my strongest condemnation is for the mother who is and was some feminist icon. Well for me icon’s don’t hand their kids around to be fucked by older men.
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No you aren’t the the person I’m referring to Marilyn but you are about the tenth person who has assumed they’re the person I’m referring to.
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I have no idea why anyone would ask the question, *do these acts cancel out any good deeds alleged perpetrators might have also done.* It’s an entirely stupid question, to my mind, what does it even mean?
Everyone has to make up their own minds how they’ll think about Ellis, Hewitt & every other public figure caught up in situations such as this.
As for one article, ONE,being described as a *fixation* with Bob Ellis, get a grip, Marilyn. Don’t pull that shit on me.
I think I made it quite clear in my second para that the involvement of Hewitt and Lilley was horrific.
You speak very publicly about your abusers, who are also dead & cannot deny your allegations. It’s ok for you to do that, but not the Lilley sisters? Really?
The sisters have every right to speak of these things, just like you. I cannot believe your attitude to this. It’s rank hypocrisy.
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Well I formed an opinion the instant I saw the headline.
The allegations actions of Ellis are entirely consistent with his published opinions over the years. Particularly “The Drum” artlices he wrote in response to the Polanski and Assange cases.
To me these new allegations drew together themes that repeatedly popped up in his writing. It was an a-ha moment for me.
He repeatedly attempted to minimise the harm of rape and other sexual assault. He repeatedly appeared to condone sex with underage partners. Creative geniuses particularly should be given free passes. What the world would have lost if Shakespeare had been persecuted for under age sex, he would muse.
And make no mistake, Ellis rated himself a creative genius. The faux bluster and hyperbole were double bluffs.
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I wonder how many other children he sexually assaulted. He was a predator & you’re defending him. You seem to be blinded by his public political actions & deeds. Did he ever have the moral courage to take personal responsibility for sexually assaulting Rosanna Lilley & make reparation to her? Now that would count for something in my eyes.
i’ve known some high profile human rights political activists & lawyers in my time & it’s really interesting, disturbing, how they can disconnect between political & personal particularly when their status is threatened.
Did it ever occur to you that he used the suffering of those children he was helping to publicly mask his darker side of abusing children?
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Thank you once more, Jennifer, for your concise points. Another point that should be reiterated is that sexual harassment in its many forms and levels of severity is a crime, and here we’re clearly talking about rape and pedophilia.
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… and these are just the cases of notoriety … the well known, the tall poppy. Public figures who make very clear and visible targets for others to vent their rage at the objectification of innocents – targets of convenience?
The idea of children and others perceived as reward or entitlement is not restricted to celebrities or other public figures.
It is about power from the owner of a cafe or manager in a factory, gym teacher or just someone who thinks they are entitled and can get away with it.
Getting away with abuse starts at home.
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Why would Dorothy Hewitt agree to allow her daughters to be sexually assaulted?
I don’t question the rights of women – or anyone to bring historic actions – even against dead people…
…but I want to know what psychology could be involved before I can hope to form an opinion.
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I understand Dorothy Hewitt herself was sexually abused somewhere down the track. To be sexually abused is to be confused and of course the degree of abuse and the age you are when it happens and how often it happens has some effect. As well as how it happens and to whom it happens. And in what context. It can have a powerful effect. They call it ‘identifying with the aggressor’ in some parts of the psychological world, the tendency we might have when we’ve been abused to side with the seemingly strong one, the abuser, and feel stronger in a pseudo way, ourselves by perpetrating further abuse on others more vulnerable, including our children.
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When I entered the workforce in the late 80s there was a lot of literature around about workplace sexual harassment and the new laws against it. I became expert at analysing situations in terms of sexual harassment legislation. I was oh-so-woke.
Then #METOO happened and I realised a lot of what I had classified sexual harassment was actually sexual assault. I had been ignorant. It was a big shock. The ground shifted beneath me.
It reminded me of earlier thoughts I had made of the late 60s period. Progressive of that era would create pop culture and present what they thought were light hearted and liberated sex romps. From my different perspective, I was seeing sexual assault and codification of men’s access to women’s bodies.
They were frequently confusing acts of misogyny and sexual assault with acts of sexual liberation.
This confusion ran through the Ellis’ articles mentioned my previous comment. It runs through Greer’s recent thoughts on rape. It runs through many of the apologies for Polanski’s crimes and apologies for the Assange allegations.
Anyway! I will now speculate as to Hewitt’s motives. She thought she was encouraging sexual liberation. She didn’t realise what she was doing was sexual assault.
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Thoughtful comments, Sea Monster.
Sexual liberation sounded wonderful compared to the stitched up attitudes of previous decades. As with any libertarian freedoms, they can be used to control and abuse others – those who point out the hypocrisy are often termed stitched up prudes or liars.
As for parents using their children .. words fail … I just feel ill wondering how manipulating children could be considered liberating. I feel the same way about religious and similar institutions which justify their assault on innocence.
Yes, we do need to talk about Bob Ellis – however, we need to go much further.
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Ah the benefit of hindsight.
I call this the arrogance of the present – the idea that what we believe now is right and should be the standard we use to judge the past. Perhaps in another 10 years attitudes will shift again and we will condemn 2018? Certainly history shows us that some things go in cycles. A prediction – the future will reassess #metoo and find fault.
As for Hewitt. Exactly, she thought she was encouraging sexual liberation. But was it assault, even in today’s terms? I thought that the sister who had sex with Ellis claimed it was consensual. Yes, she was under the age of consent but there was a very live debate at that time that the law should not dictate a specific age. There was also a very clear knowledge that the age of consent laws differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction – 16 in England, 15 in France and Germany, 14 in Italy, 13 in Spain, and at that time, 12 in Holland.
Certainly Ellis took advantage of the situation, but assault?
Did they break the law? Yes. No doubt they also smoked dope and flouted a great many other laws and conventions. And I wonder if the sisters themselves thought they were capable of consent? I certainly knew of adolescents who thought the law was unfair. I also knew of others who ignored it completely.
And are we sure even today that the British and Australians are the one’s who got the age right and not the French and Germans?
And apologies for Polanski? Who has apologised? The victim in this case, Samantha Greiner has had much to say about the case. Pity people ignore what she has to say.
Apologies for Assange? You assume he’s guilty don’t you? And yet the details of the case have been well publicised. He was never charged. The Swedish police simply wanted to question him. He fled to England not to avoid justice in Sweden, but over very real fears he would be extradited to the US. Besides, the Swedes have dropped the matter.
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I did not say I think Assange is guilty. You can tell because I used the word allegations.
Specific accusations were made against Assange guilty or not. Many people, including his defence team, tried to argue the alleged actions wouldn’t constitute sexual assault in England or Australia.
The allegations actions would constitute sexual assault in Australia and England. A series of courts in the UK have found this in his extradation hearings.
People who deny (alleged) sexual assault is (alleged) sexual assault are apologising for sexual assault.
Also I’m allowed to form an opinion on his guilt. That’s the point of the article.
On Polanski I prefer to look at the evidence that convicted him. His thirteen year old victim repeatedly asked him to stop. She wants it dropped now? The law doesn’t work that way. He’s an absconding criminal.
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The victim in the Polanski case successfully sued him in the civil courts. She considers the matter finished. She has said that every time the issue is raised again she is revictimised.
I’m not saying that the charges bought by Sweden against Assange don’t constitute sexual assault. I’m saying that the reason he sought asylum was to avoid extradition to the US for espionage. He said he would make himself available to be questioned by the Swedish authorities – in England. I believe he was eventually questioned and the sexual assault case has been closed. He remains in asylum because the British want to arrest him for avoiding arrest.
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My first point was that people apologised for the actions (or alleged actions) or Polanski and Assange.
No where did I say: Ray H apologised for these actions.
You took it apon yourself to dispute that many people attempted to apologise for the actions. I gave you examples.
The fact that Polanski’s victim settled with him in a civil matter does not change the fact that many of his defenders tried to minimise his crimes
It is irrelevant to my point.
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The problem is that people tend to rely on rumour and impression. There is no ‘alleged’ in regard to Polanski because he admitted his guilt. Assange maintained his innocence. There was a lot said by many uninformed people about both the Polanski and Assange cases. Whilst some people may have tried to minimise Polanski’s crime (without his permission) others tried to maximise it to the point of completely ignoring the victim. Too much uninformed opinion – including your opinion that ‘many’ of Polanski’s ‘defenders’ tried to minimise his crimes. Most of his genuine defenders were concerned about the legality and justice of the attempts to extradite him – one of these defenders is the victim herself, Samantha Greiner.
As for Assange – again, the matter has been dropped by the Swedish authorities.
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What ?
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I hear angels saying we might best fear to tread and yet the crimes alleged by the Lilley sisters in their books to have been committed with parental facilitation deserve punishment even if one of the particular defendants named here is now deceased. Caravaggio’s skills with tempera are non the less admirable for his homicidal proclivities and yet I personally avoid Heidegger’s counterfeited pseudo-philosophy because he demonstrated disqualifying flaws by collaboration with the NSDAP criminals and condemned a jew or two including his teacher Edmund Husserl. True it is to say that the damaging consequences of the abuses of young adolescent girls leaves no doubt that Rozanna and Kate Lilley have the more prominent right to have their say at this time of coming out when sexual barbarism is being exposed for what it is finally. There is no excuse, no justification for what these two women had to endure.
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You should report it to the police immediately!
But I do wonder why the Lilley sisters have only named the dead and not the living.
You would think that if they wished to seek punishment they would name them?
Perhaps this isn’t about revenge or justice, but about recording that it happened.
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I was also raped by Bob Ellis. So was my brother who committed suicide 4 years later. He was an evil man. Everyone in these circles knew what he was up to. Everyone. Thank god for me too.
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Good article Jennifer. Well said. Brave. Respect. You might lose some friends over this story.
Lefties like to cover up their crimes.
You might also want to ask why the Leftie Media won’t report that in the US last week 2,300 pedophiles were rounded up like fornicating goats or their sexual perversions. It’s rife in Hollywood, the Media and Judiciary and the creative arty types. Even Bill Clinton lamented that the times have changed. Can’t rape interns anymore. Gotta be extra careful. Go to Haiti instead…
I thanked God the day President Trump was elected. He and the DOJ will clean the lot of these scum out.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/national_media_ignoring_doj_arrests_of_2300_suspected_pedophiles.html
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I can’t agree with you on the Trump issues, Frank, but I’m sure you already know that.
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Yes, Frank. Trump might have to arrest himself and thousands of other deplorables. (PS: Just where is Nurse with your meds?)
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Well as I said elsewhere the left wing intellectuals were having themselves on. They were serving women a shit sandwich of mysoginy and male entitlement and calling it sexual liberation. They hijacked a legitimate movement.
It’s been interesting over the last decade or so to see aging left-wing progressives struggling with this. Some have reassessed and changed. Some have been unable to and busily go apologising for rape in the blogosphere.
Ellis incidentally was one of the first to open my eyes to this. The rape jokes in “The Nostrodus Kid” distiburbed me. It doesn’t surprise me that this latest revelation has set off a minor metoo centred on Ellis. A string of young women coming forward with their own troubling Ellis stories.
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Oops. Responded to the wrong Doug comment. This was supposed to appear below were Doug mentions the attitudes of the ’60s and ’70s.
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What ?
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Hope you’re keeping well, Frank
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Yep, in good spirits Havana. Follow me on Twitter @FLongshank Lots more fun there! See you there!
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I have no reason to doubt the Lilley’s. As for making up our own minds – not so sure. If making up our own minds involves projecting our feelings onto them – no. I wonder if the Lilley’s would say they are ‘horrified’.
Look, I never liked Ellis. I thought he was a sleaze. But he’s dead so he can’t tell his side of the story, let alone have a chance to reflect and apologise. I understand that another dead perp, Martin Sharp, did apologise to one of the sisters. Perhaps Ellis had regret? We’ll never know so we can’t assume anything.
I also note that they say living men also offended against them. Yet they do not name them. Why? Perhaps because they don’t wish them grief? It certainly seems that the sisters reached peace with their mother and perhaps Hewitt had deep regret for exposing her daughters to predatory men.
And have the sister’s been traumatised? Or are they simply telling their story? They have certainly rejected the idea there was a paedophile ring. In fact they’ve said it was all rather ordinary.
So I wonder if people are being offended on their behalf and not really listening to what they have to say? And do you think that two highly educated and articulate women need anyone to be offended on their behalf?
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Ray H, I’m going to charitably assume you haven’t read the orginal Australan article with the girls’ interviews, and the interview with their half-brother.
They described life in their mother’s house as “unbearable”, and “like a brothel without payment”.
David Hamilton was alleged to have showed Rozanna child porn, and took photographic close ups of her 14-15 year old vagina. Ellis was alleged to have grabbed Rozanna’s hands when whe was 14 and forcibly placed them down his pants. They described their own father as violent and aggressive and seriously mentally unstable. Both girls left home before they were 18 and ended up in destructive relationships with older men.
As to why they haven’t named the men who assaulted them who are still alive:
Kate: “I’m very scared of it all,” she says. “I’ve been on antidepressants for 20 years. I’ve been in therapy for 20 years. I’m in a good place. This has all been a source of tremendous distress and pain. In one sense I feel clear-cut outrage about it and in another sense I feel it was all just a huge mess and very complicated.”
I’m not sure what you find “ordinary” about any of these claims, or why you doubt the trauma those events caused in later life.
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I don’t read the Murdoch press. I read Jacqui Maley’s piece in the SMH and heard her speak about it on ‘The Drum’. I won’t be able to read the Australian piece because of the paywall.
The word ‘ordinary’ comes from the Maley piece. Certainly the Australian interview paints a much grimmer picture.
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From Maley’s piece condemning Ellis.
“Kate, a professor and poet, says that what went on at their home was well-known, “a very ordinary story”.”
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Yes, it is an ordinary story which for mine makes it all the more horrific.
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In regard to David Hamilton. At the time he was a very popular and influential photographer. The look of ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ was inspired by his technique. I never liked his work but many people did. His books were freely available in most major bookstores.
Thing is, everyone could see that his primary subject matter was highly eroticised images of young adolescent girls. Today we would say sexualised. In his case, he would agree. More conservative voices said it was child pornography. Others thought the images were beautiful, which would account for his ‘celebrity’ status.
I wonder if the child porn Hamilton showed Rozanna were examples of his own work and the photos he took were within his well known subject matter?
I say this because people might think that he showed her hard core child porn and focused specifically on her genitals.
Of course the photos should not have been taken if she was at all uncomfortable.
In recent years allegations of rape and inappropriate behaviour were made against Hamilton. This was not known at the height of his popularity. He committed suicide in Paris a few years ago.
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I think it is unrealistic to expect that people won’t have opinions on this matter and express them, Ray. There’s no imperative to remain silent because it happened to someone else and not you.
I’m guessing the matter of defamation law might cause the sisters and their publishers to withhold names of those still alive.
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Of course. I’m actually not suggesting otherwise.
By speaking publicly and naming key figures, anyone who knows the people involved would be able to work out who the unnamed ‘film producer’ is. Defamation only applies to matters that are untrue.
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How should we view these matters; that is the question. Each of us have our own answer, our own view.
For mine I am not surprised at what happened in the 1960s and 1970s; Ellis was a left wing intellectual in a time when “free love” and the sexual liberation revolution were at their height, in the days before AIDS and a conservative backlash ushered in a new Puritanism, which still advances today in many places.
The victims (for want of a better word) look back with 20/20 hindsight and say “we were raped, we were pimped by our parents, and abused by people who should have known better and who behaved abominably.” And so it went.
They can speak out if they wish. Or keep it private, again as they wish.
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I am not surprised at what happened in the 1800’s and before, it was a time when some people thought they were superior to others; slavery was acceptable – I guess using such logic we should not call out slavery today.
As for the “new Puritanism” – where? Evangelistic USA? Saudi Arabia?
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AIDS was the new bogeyman of the 1980s and onwards; the free love era lasted about 20 years. That is the period under discussion, is it not? The period between when the Pill ended the risks of pregnancy and antibiotics ended the risks of venereal diseases; until the rise of AIDS.
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I thought we were discussing cultural change.
Statutory rape was a crime even in the “swinging” 60’s.
Ellis may have believed the teenage girls were consenting and he was, somehow, entitled. However, Bob Ellis, et al, were all well over 18. The oldest of the Lilley girls, Kate, was 15.
That you feel the need to defend the indulgence of men like Bob Ellis says a great deal about you.
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Saying “men like Bob Ellis” says a great deal about you, Dianna.
He was a friend.
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FYI – these offences occurred in NSW where the concept of statutory rape is not applied. I also don’t know why you mention the age of 18. The age of consent in NSW is 16. Makes me think you live in the US.
As for Ellis ‘believing’ the girls consented. I believe the sisters and they said they consented. In one account (in the Saturday Paper) the youngest said that whenever she said no he respected her decision. This would suggest that on other occasions she must have said yes.
Does this mean he should have proceeded? No. He broke the law – but it wasn’t a law anyone in that scene, including the girls, respected.
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“That is the period under discussion, is it not? ”
Oh that’s right. The 60s and 70s. Those two isolated decades out of the entirety of human history when the patriarchy existed, and young women ran the risk of being exploited and raped. Everything was so new and exciting and different, DQ. How was a leftist intellectual to know the difference? The irony of course is this is exactly the same excuse the Catholic church uses about those very same times…
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Follow the thread and try to comprehend before accusing.
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I wasn’t accusing, I was disagreeing. If he was your friend, you might have offered up a less shallow defence, because you basically just called him a sycophant.
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It’s not a defence; there is none.
I was endorsing the right of the women to speak out, if they wished.
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Thanks for clarifying, Doug. I apologise for misreading.
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What ?
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I’m with Doug when it comes to Bob Ellis. He’s here no more, but his wife and children are.
He and Annie were always kind towards me, I wish I could say the same of some monsters on his blog, dishing mental abuse out of their poisonous minds, always ready to hate…
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Always find a way to cover for abusive men whenever women they have assaulted speak out.
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Can we and should we make up our own minds about the Bob Ellis allegations? if we can and/or should, it’d be easier to so if there were not so many other allegations, accusations, criticisms and contradictions now billowing like smog banks – such a variety of artificial and arbitrary infringements of semantic and moral norms that seem quite minor vis-a-vis the “allegations” that we are making up our minds about. I’ve made up my mind now but mums the word. That way there’ll be no more disturbing semantic malfeasances.
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Excellent interview with the Lilley sisters at 27:42. Worth watching for those still engaging in what-about-isms, and publicly airing their wounded male vanity.
https://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-project/2018/6/24
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@ Nick
When self-entitled privilege is threatened it feels like oppression … as in how dare these women complain?
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Diana, I certainly think some of us are still in denial as to the severity of what happened. The personal account in this interview of Ellis’s grooming behaviour (normalising the assault by walking the 14 year old girl to school afterwards) was chilling, as was Rozanna’s impression of his words and mannerisms.
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