"An undiclosed amount in compensation"?

Apparently our Commonwealth government has agreed to an "undisclosed amount in compensation" to an alleged rape victim. 

I know many people will feel she should get this, perhaps even more. There has been an extraordinary degree of sympathy for her. There has been an assumption of her alleged assailant's guilt from the start. 

Even though she was drunk, delayed reporting it until after she was offered a substantial "book deal", wiped messages from her phone, and lied to police there has still been an outpouring of sympathy for her. Many people will now say,. "Good, at least she has got some financial compensation." 

Perhaps she deserves it. I don't know. I don't know whether she was raped or not. Nobody apart from her and the alleged rapist can ever know that.

But there are some curious things about this case. One is that, even before there was any decision by a jury, negotiations for compensation had begun. That seems a little odd to me. How could there be any compensation if the defendant was found "not guilty"? Given the delay in the jury room it is quite possible that might have been the outcome.

If there were negotiations for compensation then why was the trial allowed to proceed at all? Trials of this nature are incredibly expensive. A QC, now KC, can cost anything from $1000 an hour upwards - and that is just one expense.

It also seems a little odd to me that a juror went into the jury room with a research article (allegedly about lying in rape cases). Jurors cannot take papers apart from those they are provided with into the jury room and there are court staff to ensure that does not happen. Even if someone did manage to get anything in then was nobody else on the jury aware of it?  Why did it take one of the court staff to find it and report it? The idea that it was there, if not in full view, in a readily accessible position also seems a little odd. 

Of course we have not yet heard an end to all this. The defendant is also seeking compensation. We are told that he has been close to suicide as well.  He has lost his job, his reputation, any chance of anything other than the most menial of employment. There are other claims being made against him-  although it must be acknowledged that none of these have been proven and only surfaced after the trial was aborted.  Perhaps he is innocent. Perhaps he is guilty. I don't know.

What I do know is that awarding compensation in these circumstances is, to say the very least, unusual. Perhaps the alleged victim deserves it. I don't know. What I do know is that it sets  a poor precedent and it would have been wiser to have the matter settled in a court of law rather than by interference and public opinion.