In June last year, the ACT's top judge discharged a jury only four days into a family violence trial.
"This trial has not gone smoothly," Chief Justice Lucy McCallum said at the time.
But why those proceedings ended so abruptly could not be reported by media, given the risk to prejudicing a possible retrial.
After nearly 18 months, two more trials, and a handful of guilty verdicts delivered on Thursday afternoon, the reason can be revealed.
That is, the woman who brought forward more than decade-old allegations was done with the criminal justice system and with being repeatedly branded a liar.
'I've had enough'
"You know what you've done. You know what you've f---ing done!" the woman shouted in the middle of cross-examination.
"I'm not answering any more questions. I've had enough."
The emotional and sudden outburst was a jarring moment in the ACT Supreme Court, catching a usually reserved and professional environment by surprise.
"If you want to let him out, let him out. The system's failed me all these years anyway," the victim said, with palpable anger in her voice.
"I can feel his eyes on me in the back of the court."
The poignant words rang loudly throughout the courtroom, echoed by the tiny audio-visual link room the victim sat in to give evidence from a prison outside the territory.
That fact was not hidden from jurors, nor was the woman's history of drug abuse within and outside the relationship.
What's the point if the jury can't convict on the evidence already given, the victim asked after a barrage of questions and accusations about dishonesty.
"I'm suggesting to you quite clearly that you're lying when you say that," defence barrister John Purnell SC said before the outburst.
The silk had also queried why the woman didn't at the time report being confined in a Canberra home for three days while she was violently raped, assaulted and humiliated.
"Who do I have to complain to? I'm going through domestic violence," she responded before reaching the end of her tether.
'Institutional apology' issued
As the victim's deafening yelling turned into a high-pitched scream, Chief Justice McCallum had no choice but to mute her sensitive microphone.
The judge, like others in the room, appeared distressed by what had happened and the court adjourned until the afternoon.
"I have concerns for her mental health and she has said she fears if she continues today with her evidence, she'll wind up in the suicide watch cell," prosecutor Skye Jerome said later that day.
"Which sounds harrowing in the way she's described it to me."
Ms Jerome also said the woman was firm on no longer wanting to answer questions and the court would have no choice but to discharge the jury.
Back on screen, the victim apologised and told the judge she had "hit the wall at this point".
But Chief Justice McCallum interjected: "Can I just stop you there because you have nothing to apologise for. If anything, the system should be apologising to you."
"I'd like to make an institutional apology to you that the system has got you to this point," she said.
Guilty
On Thursday, the third jury to hear the family violence case against the man, who is not named in this story to protect the victim's identity, returned its verdicts.
It found the man guilty on four counts of sexual intercourse without consent, and one count each of committing an act of indecency without consent and committing an act of indecency in the third degree.
"There's no f---ing evidence," the man said loudly before promptly heading back into the cells guarded by three Corrective Services officers.
The case against him revolved around a three-day period, when the victim told police her then-partner barred her from showering and forced her to urinate in the backyard "like a dog" during a protracted period of sexual assault.
"He was pretty much just treating me like a piece of meat for three days," the woman said in an interview.
"Any time he felt like it, he was just raping me, bashing me."
Jurors heard the man forced the victim to stay naked for those three days and threatened her by swinging a Stanley knife in front of her nude genitals as a way of inspecting if she had been unfaithful.
'Yeah, I hit her'
In his second trial, where jurors were hung on the sexual assault charges, the man denied every allegation but made several concessions about committing family violence.
"Yeah, I hit her on occasions," he said. "Sometimes reasonably often."
His barrister asked if the man had ever caused his partner any injuries.
"I hit her a couple of times, a couple of bruises on her. Yeah, something like that," he responded.
Under cross-examination, the prosecutor pressed him for more details about the admitted assaults throughout the pair's relationship.
But the man could not pinpoint specific occasions, became frustrated and, on more than one occasion, claimed he had always "beat all the charges".
"I don't know how we're going to get through this. I cannot picture. Yes, I might have smacked her in the head a couple of times and pulled her hair a few times," he said.
"I'm not sitting here denying I've never hit this woman."
'A trial is not a personality contest'
At the end of the third trial, defence solicitor Zachary McBride said the man's concessions about family violence and drug use went to his credit.
"He was open and frank to you about these issues," he said in his closing address, noting his client was steadfast in denying the sexual assaults.
Jurors were also told: "A trial is not a personality contest."
Mr McBride said the victim had "exaggerated and is unreliable ... mix in the possibility for financial compensation and it is a powder keg for injustice".
Last week, prosecutor Marcus Dyason told the jury the "self-serving" offender was more focussed on what could be proved than telling the truth.
Mr Dyason ended his closing address by drawing attention to the woman's outburst in the first proceedings, being "perhaps the most powerful evidence you heard during this trial".
"At a time of raw, unbridled emotion, after being cross-examined at length about [various allegations] she has made, [the victim] says, '[the offender] knows what he's done'," Mr Dyason said.
"You know what you've f---ing done to me, c---."
The prosecutor suggested the victim, the offender and now the jury knew exactly what the man had done over a three-day period more than a decade ago.
The case is next set to go before a registrar later this month.
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; MensLine 1300 789 978; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732; Canberra Rape Crisis Centre 6247 2525; ACT Domestic Violence Crisis Service 6280 0900.
