Artist Anthony Lister found not guilty

Eleven years ago, artist Anthony Lister was riding high. The Sydney Morning Herald published this front-page article proclaiming the street artist had captured the world stage and was being exhibited around the world.

They called him "Australia's Banksy" and described his mighty legal battles trying to stop the local council painting over his famous murals adorning abandoned buildings in his hometown of Brisbane.

You can view some of his extraordinary creations on his website here.

There's a documentary about his early work and the impact on his family life called Have you seen the Listers which featured for years on the Netflix platform. It's now on YouTube here. This focussed on his young family struggling to survive in a world centred around his studios full of partying people, drugs, and many, many young women keen to hang onto the coattails of this talented high-flying man.

But then his life came crashing down.

In 2020 Anthony Lister's home was raided by a 23-man task force – including police armed with sub machine guns - who had come to arrest him for sexual assault. They broke down his door before carting him off to the police station to confront hordes of media salivating over this latest #MeToo salvo. The press were given access to photos of him being locked up.

The story of what happened to Lister is just appalling. His arrest was the result of a coordinated campaign by young women determined to take him down. The charges ranged from touching a breast, to throwing a woman across the room and violently raping her. All of these accusations were ultimately discredited in court and dismissed by two juries.

Late last year a Sydney jury took only a few minutes to throw out the last of these allegations – but that decision has, unsurprisingly, been ignored by our mainstream media. The very same media which, anticipating a conviction, had published story after story reporting in salacious detail the allegations these women were making.

The witch-hunt resulted in 5 years of hell for Lister and his family. He was arrested 15 times and spent 83 days in prison. His exhibitions were attacked and closed down, his art defaced, he was debanked by two banking institutions, photographers stalked him everywhere he went. His private address was published on social media, death threats posted on his front door. A shop even promoted a "Kill your local Lister" tattoo.