Mumsnet Talk

www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2012/02/02/victim-of-convicted-rapist-hits-out-after-ruling-at-birmingham-crown-court-97319-30248034/

WTAF - this has left me in shock and seriously angry, but then I am pre-menstrual

Fucking hell those poor victims this is appalling.

These two quotes left me open - mouthed.

"Even bringing McIntosh to court was a battle – at one point the Crown Prosecution Service tried to drop the case citing a “lack of public interest”.

"David Iles, defending, said father-of-two McIntosh suffered from epilepsy and attended church. “He is not all bad,” Mr Iles said."

Lack of public interest? WHAT?

Utterly disgraceful!

I don't think it's disgraceful that they tried him as a youth offender because he committed his crimes as a youth. As a principle, I think that's correct and right.

What I do think is disgraceful, is the lack of recognition that sex offenders need intensive therapy, or to be kept well away from their targeted victims (whether that be women, children or men) and therefore need to be treated differently than common or garden burglars, for example. Until very real evidence is there that they are no longer dangerous to the potential targets of their crimes, they shouldn't be allowed back into the community.

Well, the lack of public interest rests on the basis that women aren't really the public.

So it doesn't really matter if rapists aren't prosecuted, because the public won't be disturbed by that.

Oh well it's the kind of thing lawyers always say about rapists isn't it.

Because rape is such a marginal thing to them. It's such a detail. Really unimportant. The bigger picture, is that this guy is charming and goes to church and has good taste in furniture or whatever - all of which are far more important than the fact that he's a rapist. Unless of course, he rapes men or children, in which case he's a monster, obv.

I think that the fact he has a subsequent conviction for rape, should have superceded the trying him as a youth offence thing.

I can understand them saying - yes he did this when he was X so we need to look at it as then and sentence as we would have had then.

BUT in the meantime this behaviour has been shown to be a pattern

AND presumably he would have got longer in prison for the later rape, if these offences had been tried and convicted at the time.

So actually, logically, it doesn't make sense, what they have done. Due to the subsequent behaviour and conviction.

Well - all defendants have a defence lawyer and it's their duty to make the best possible case for the defendant.

SQ - I don't quite understand your point. He committed the crimes as a minor in the 1980s so he had to be sentenced as a minor would have been in the 1980s. I can quite see why people are frustrated, but really, what else could the judge have done?

The CPS attitude is a separate matter... they do appear, generally, to be both incompetent and not terribly bothered about sexual offences.

Yes but that's because there's nothing logical about the way they treat rape.

They treat it as if it's a crime like burglary or fraud. Unless it's something like Peter Sutcliffe and it also involves murder, they very rarely treat rape as it should be treated - as a crime which indicates a state of mind that means it will be committed again and again unless there is a root and branch clear-out of the perpetrator's values and beliefs. You can't "go straight" from rape, unless you've had a complete character-change, unlike most other crimes.

Mooncup logically because if he had been caught, prosecuted and convicted of these crimes when he was a minor, he would presumably have got more time in prison for the later rape.

So by not getting caught at the time for the first crime, he has got off more lightly for the second crime.

(Although I would be surprised if there were not other victims out there).

'Not all bad'...
Curate's egg?

Public interest - the use of the word 'public' is pretty flexible, eg 'public transport' - disabled, parent (ie mother) with buggy+ toddler, woman at night (asking for it), mugging victim, Black person in Eltham (Stephen Lawrence) etc etc. Actually 'public' means able bodied, white, young, potentially violent men

Ah yes, of course, I hadn't considered that angle SQ. He would have got a higher sentence for the second rape, because he would have had a criminal track record in it.

Yes that should have been reflected in the sentence.