DESHEN SC: Low-rise skinny jeans, according to police records, Miss Lurie, and a skimpy low-cut top. M’Lady, the defence would like to submit into evidence this artist’s impression of the clothing Miss Lurie was wearing on the night in question. As you can see, Miss Lurie, the jeans you were wearing were skin-tight, and the top was cut so low as to reveal a portion of your breasts. I put it to you, Miss Lurie, that no decent young woman would wear such an outfit to have dinner at her father’s house.

MS. LURIE: No, I assure you, there was nothing at all unusual about that outfit. It was very much in fashion two years ago. . .

DESHEN SC: And now, Miss Lurie? And now? Do you still wear such harlot’s garb?

MS. LURIE: Well, no. Not any more. But that’s because of the trauma I experienced which made me believe, incorrectly as it turned out, that I was somehow responsible. . .

DESHEN SC: Shame, Miss Lurie. That would be a good word for what you experienced, wouldn’t it? Shame, for the inappropriately sexual clothes you chose to flaunt your body in under your father’s roof. Shame, for the lack of decorum that let you visit your own father dressed like a temptress—like the Whore of Babylon herself.

MS. LURIE: No, you’ve got it all wrong. Those clothes are normal street wear for a woman in her twenties, or of any age for that matter.

DESHEN SC: Then why have you stopped wearing them, Miss Lurie? Why do you now drape yourself like a woman of decency and propriety, if not because you have realised the error of your ways? If not because you have acknowledged to yourself, if to no one else, that you brought your rape upon yourself by dressing like a sexual object? If you clothe yourself as a sexual object, how can you blame the rest of the world when it treats you as such? The world takes you at your own valuation, and you valued yourself as a common tramp. Of course, you got raped. How could it have been otherwise?

KHUMALO SC: Objection, M’Lady. Counsel is badgering the witness.

MKHWANE J: Yes, indeed. Mr. Deshen, I think you’ve made your point.

In every criminal case, the defence team has one crucial decision to make—whether to put the defendant on the stand or not. The correct decision is almost always to keep the defendant as far from testifying as possible. Many defendants are champing at the bit to get their moment in court, convinced that all the judge or jury needs to find in their favour is a few well-chosen words from them. They are nearly always wrong.