AIBU to be shocked by the outcome of the Isabel Rose case?

Of course women aren't going to admit when they've made it up! The stakes are so high socially and criminally. The social capital of being a victim is massive in today's society because there are so many real victims and an outpouring of sympathy from other women. The social suicide of lying about this is immense. You would have to be a complete idiot to confess to fabricating rape allegations. No one does. Ever. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

My mother outright lied about my dad during divorce proceedings and said he'd raped me. She said she'd seen him. She was doing it to stop him getting custody or knowing where we were. He had done nothing to her but she was an awful controlling narcissist and was out to destroy him. It was a horrendous process for me and him. He got arrested. I was subjected to an invasive disgusting violating "medical" where a doctor checked if my hymen was intact. Despite me saying it never happened. When they found it wasn't, they proceeded with the case. I was talked down to by police and treated like a hostile witness for not giving them details on something that didn't happen. They believed her because she was so good at playing the victim. I am glad the CPS refused to prosecute.

The effect of this on me was when I was genuinely raped I didn't tell anyone or go to the police because I didn't want to go through all that again. False allegations affect rape victims as well, and that is why it really pisses me off when the "We Believe All Women And No Men" brigade come out.

To be perfectly honest I think this perpetual victim narrative is really sexist. As a society, women tend to automatically believe all women even when a court has investigated and ruled otherwise; it does women a disservice to infantilise them like this.

Sometimes women actually do lie about rape. That doesn't invalidate those that it's really happened to. That doesn't invalidate those who were disbelieved or dismissed or silenced. It really doesn't. The issue is not black and white. And calls to murder men on this thread are despicable. Those people baying for this must either have no moral compass at all or believe rape is worse than murder.

I know someone who saw a young woman late at night. She said she'd missed her bus and he gave her a lift. She almost immediately told him to go to a cash point and get her £200 or she was going to the police to report he'd raped her. He stopped the car and told her to do what she liked and hope she enjoyed the walk. He never heard anymore about it. He was late 70s and it did upset him but he didn't let her see that.

Definitely sounds like blackmail, possibly rape.

The chain of messages before her attempt at extortion are what made me believe she had been raped.

It’s an interesting thought. I was reading about El Salvador where they chucked everyone who was in a gang into prison in order to combat homicides/ other crime. About 1% of the population / 3% of adult males. Homicides rate dropped by 98%. There is quite a lot of international condemnation about human rights abuses but the people of the country seem quite happy to be able to live their lives free from extortion/ threat of being murdered for walking down the street.

What exactly has made you "be shocked by the outcome of the Isabel Rose case" ?

She was convicted for blackmail.

They can but it doesn’t usually extend to blackmailing for £100k. Whether she was or wasn’t raped (and I don’t believe she was based on what I have read), she massively undermined herself and cannot be seen as a credible witness.

If the jury is made up of a fair mix of society, some will think as you do, some will think the same as me and this means there is no realistic prospect of convinction, hence no charge.

I see the 'if a woman says she been raped it can't possibly ever not be true' brigade are out in force!

I hear what you're saying but I believe victims of rape can say and do all sorts of questionable things. I understand her defense team are appealing
So in your world, women never lie about being raped and never use sex as a mean to get money. These cases shouldn't even be considered in court because it should be assumed the man is always lying?

Like anyone judges aren't infallible
They are much less so than the press and complete stranger who are writing their own narrative to suite their personal opinions.

For one, we don't know if there were texts exchanged but not published by the press.

For two, what has been published can be interpreted in many different ways.

People really need to stop using significant events to drive their own agenda. It's unfair on the people directly involved in the situation and it risks sending very wrong messages.

Only the latter has been proven.

He’s a rapist.
She’s a blackmailer.

Both deserve some form of punishment.

Agree with @ComtesseDeSpair - having read the court transcript rather than media reports, I'm not shocked - seems that while there was no reasonable doubt she was blackmailing him, there was plenty of reasonable doubt around whether he raped her and those doubts were introduced by the subsequent text messages painting quite a different picture.

The full court transcript which contains all the text messages exchanged between them does make the context quite murky in court: https://legalref.judiciary.hk/doc/judg/word/vetted/other/en/2024/DCCC0007332024.docx

A lot hinged on messages where she asked him if he was annoyed that she didn’t want to have sex the night before and apologised for stopping after oral sex and he replied that he wasn’t and it was fine as he didn’t want to rush her: the inference was that she wouldn’t have asked him if he was annoyed she didn’t want to have sex and apologise, if he had indeed used his penis to have vaginal and anal sex as she later stated he did. In messages which followed she talked about sexual fantasies - the implication again being that this is an unusual thing to do with somebody who you believe raped you the night before. I have no idea what the truth is, but the context does give an idea of what led doubt.

Then her demands for money followed, which make it a whole lot more complicated to work out whether it was a false accusation and blackmail or not.

The judge also mentioned she used disappearing text messages. I suspect there’s a lot more to this story.

With only reading the article it looks like she set him up! Had sex with him then claimed he raped her and tried to exhort money from him.

Sounds like both rape and blackmail.

Why most probably? It may well be that it was 100% consensual, then she re-wrote history for the purpose of extorting a large amount of money from him.

It definitely feels like a set up to extort money from the off to me.

The message re ‘are you upset’ was her laying the foundations.

Theres nothing about what I just read that made me think it was the wrong outcome.

What would happen if women started killing their rapists. There are so many rapes there would be a very sudden uptick in woman on male murder. The prisons would be overwhelmed. The streets would get gradually safer. Maybe that would make the government listen?