Criminal Law Law

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

By Fiona Hum
Routledge November 2025

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781032876320
Publisher
Routledge
Publication
November 2025
Format
Hardback
Jurisdiction
U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

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.

Table of Contents

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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