This Text is a carefully and thoughtfully researched study, not merely of a horrific crime, but of the culture and sub-cultures that lay behind it. Carrington writes of Stockton as being working

So, who killed Leigh Leigh? Who raped her? Carrington emphasis that nobody in town would reveal that. The text shows Australian 'mateship' at its very worse, men 'loyally' protecting their fellow men, even if they committed a horrific act of evil. Although 18-year-old Matthew Webster confessed to killing Leigh many questions remain unanswered. Was he protecting others because you don't dob in your mates? Who was responsible for raping Leigh prior to the murder? This are the questions Carrington positions us to ask ourselves, as she again and again keeps coming back to the issue ‘of what can happen when shame and mateship mix with a small-town mentality.’ By expressing this issue of mateship she comes back to how the societies influence on young teens perhaps resulted in the murder of Leigh, ‘The boys at this party were acting out their place in a gender order where the degradation of girls was in some sense natural to them. When expressing her views she uses emotional language and strong argument to get the reader to respond to what she implying. She emphasis the fact that people thought that Leigh ‘asked for it’ and that Matt Webster ‘was just being rough or just a boy or acting-out as a bloke with his mates and that was it.’ pg 133 By emphasing this you are positioned to ask yourself how could someone ask to be raped and how could they excuses a murderer.

Though out the text Carrington positions the reader to feels strongly about the objectivity of women in this society. ‘Rape doesn’t matter’ pg x this is the first three words of the text, at that instant you immediately feel morally out rage and think to your self how could this be? At this point Carrington has got your attention as you are questioning the values of this society. She goes on to say ‘People had forgotten, that Leigh was the victim and not the boys or the people of Stockton’ pg xii, once again you are confused, as how could the boys who brutally raped and murder a fourteen year old girl be the victim? Carrington conveys an image that this people are somewhat immorally corrupt, and strengthens that view by including statistics of

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