Remember how the Brittany Higgins case blew up when a juror brought into the jury room an academic paper discussing the frequency of false allegations of sexual assault? That broke the rules prohibiting jury members from accessing outside material relevant to the case.

Yet the significance of this extraordinary event, which led to the mistrial of one of Australia’s most sensational rape cases, has passed largely unnoticed.

The myth that women hardly ever lie is a central plank of the feminist mythology about sexual assault which now underpins our justice system.