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Through the Distorted Lens: Constructing Truth and Reality with Legal Narratives

Through the Distorted Lens: Constructing Truth and Reality with Legal Narratives

Author: Fiona Hum
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032876320
Published In: November 2025
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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This monograph analyses controversial trial outcomes (both civil and criminal) through a post structural feminist lens of narrative creation. It considers how narratives are constructed in trials and how the admission or exclusion of evidence can lead to the formation of distorted narratives that produce flawed outcomes.

The book discusses contemporary evidential challenges surrounding the societal and legal framing of ‘truth’ within the Anglo-American trial process. It applies a post-structural feminist approach to examine how facts and rules are interpreted through the construction of legal stories. Chapters are organised to address key themes in high profile cases from around the globe. These include the cases of George Cardinal Pell, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, Lawyer X, Brittany Higgins and Kathleen Folbigg. This book departs from previous publications, such as those with a traditional feminist perspective, in that it presents both sides of the distorted lens where a defendant is written into a story as both guilty and innocent. Its focus on cognitive and narrative processes provides insight into the role of narratives and evidence construction in the trial process, and how such processes are used by legal advocates.

This book would be of interest to scholars of legal psychology, criminology and socio-legal studies. It will also interest scholars and students of evidence law, especially those studying miscarriages of justice.

INTRODUCTION

What Do We See and Hear?

The Power of Narratives

Story Construction

The Legal Narrative

CHAPTER 1. Construction of Language and Facts: Illusion or Reality in The Courtroom?

Evidentiary Terminology and Concepts

Relevance

Rules of Exclusions

The Presumption of Innocence

Burden of Proof

Fact-finding and Proof

R v Dawson

Pell v The Queen

Depp v Heard

CHAPTER 2. Rituals, Practice and Procedure: The Truth, the Whole Truth, Anything but the Truth

Legal Rituals and Power

Oaths and Affirmations

Judge or Jury?

The Church, its Rituals and the Sexual Complainant

Pell v R

Purpose of Appellate Courts

The Robes

Courtroom Distancing

CHAPTER 3. Constructing the Defendant: The Three Faces of Eve

Mad, Bad & Sad

Translation as a means to produce meaning

Women Who Kill

Letby v Rex

Motherhood

An Emerging Linguistic Science on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Baby Killer and Evidential Rules

a) United Kingdom

R v Trupti

R v Clark

R v Cannings

R v Anthony

b) Australia

R v Phillips

R v Mathey

R v Kathleen Folbigg

Constructing a mad, bad, mother

The Male Image

The Diarie

A Literal Translation

Male Child Killers

a) United States

Robert Leslie Robertson III v Texas

b) Australia

The Queen v Robert Farquharson

Coincidence Reasoning

Mothers and Mothering

Australia: R v Kathleen Folbigg

R v Phillips

UK: R v Clark

R v Cannings

R v Anthony

USA:

The Male Image

Lost in Translation

Narratives in Sexual Complainant Trials

CHAPTER 4. Expanding the Intersectional Approach – from priest to movie stars

Intersectionality of the Defendant

The Power of Questioning

The Sexual Complainant

Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Ltd

What is seen, heard or perceived?

The Movie Star

Johnny Depp v Amber Heard….

Race

Flowers v States.

George Floyd

Changing Sides – The Duality of the Mask

Lawyer X

Transgender and Bias

Tickle v Giggle for Girls

Social Platforms and Media Narratives: A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

CHAPTER 5. New Linguistic Interpretations and Narratives

Science and Knowledge

Australia: R v Folbigg

Human Error or Incompetence?

Canada: Dr Charles Smith

Debunking the Junk Science..

Reconstruction Evidence - The Queen v Robert Farquharson

Memory Science - Pell v The Queen

DNA Exonerations - Ronnie Wallace Long

Digital and Virtual Reality

Court Recordings – Depp v Heard

The Podcast – R v Dawson

Newspapers – George Floyd

Television - Pell v The Queen

Text Messaging – Lucy Letby

From the Micro to the Macro

Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation

George Floyd

Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Ltd

Johnny Depp v Amber Heard

CHAPTER 6. Developing A Different Dialogue

Understanding the Lens Through Which We See

The Requirement of Certainty

The Process of Generalisations to the Particular

Culturally Gendered Perceptions in Allocating Blame

Social Media is the New Communicator

Jurors

The Power of the Post-Structural Feminist lens

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

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