the use of the word 'alleged'

Exactly. A death can be manslaughter, murder, suicide, death by dangerous driving, death by careless driving etc. What it was is proven in court, not by the police. So pre-trial the same doubts about what the crime was exist.

Once it has been established that someone has been murdered, the murder itself is a matter of fact. A person has been intentionally killed by another person. It is therefore not an ?alleged? murder and it would be wrong to report it as such.

The question of who is responsible for the murder, however, does remain open. As such the person accused is an ?alleged? murderer (or some variation thereon) and this is what is generally reported.

He was arrested for their murder, though (as in "you are under arrest for the murder of..."). That's a statement of fact. And he was arrested as soon as the bodies were found.

You often get "Police are treating the death as murder", or "as suspicious", which is a longwinded way of saying "alleged".

That was what struck me about the "alleged victim" thing. Why pick out rape victims unless you're implying that they're pretty likely to prove to have not been victims.

Although saying that I was caught up in it all and thinking about it I don't recall not knowing it was a bombing, and that was pretty early on.

LRP don't know the actual answer but it was on the news the other day, I think to do with the inquest, that there was a period when they were unsure whether it had been a bombing or not.

Can anyone remember how they reported the 7/7 bombings? I seem to recall someone telling me it was a 'suspected bombing' at some stage - because there, they really weren't sure for quite some time (45 minutes-an hour).

Sorry, "alleged hijacking", not "alleged hijackers". Trying to do two things at once...

Because it's generally entirely clear (well, within a few hours, anyway) whether there has actually been a hijacking or a bombing. If a reporter is standing in front of an airport with a hijacked plane on the tarmac behind him from which the hijackers are negotiating with police/government it's a bit to say "alleged hijackers". Similarly if a car bomb has gone off and you are standing reporting from the crater while referring to the "alleged bombing". Kind of like talking about an "alleged banana" or an "alleged chair".

Ants - yeah, it seems about as likely as saying someone didn't get mugged, they asked a stranger to knock them about a bit.

It's particularly odd that other areas of forensics (is that the right word?) are so developed and people can draw conclusions from what seems like incredibly complicated and slender evidence ... but rape tests are still very basic, aren't they?

If nothing else, it seems strange to me that no-one's worked out a way of testing for, say, the presence of semen without getting in there with a swab.

:(

I think that's probably true. If I was told that a young girl asked for rough sex with a stranger on the street, I would automatically disbelieve it and would need extremely good back-up proof that this had happened (e.g. witness) or evidence of similar behaviour from her (e.g. man who she had asked and had refused).

"Innocent until proven guilty" is obviously sacred and shouldn't be damaged, but I wonder about what "proof" people actually want sometimes.

Presumably if the govt gets its way we'll be back with 2 independent male witnesses or similar.

I don't know why the opinions and testimony of rape victims isn't given any credence. I mean surely her testimony that she was just trying to walk home or whatever and had never and would never demand sex from a stranger in the street (strange and frankly unbelievable behaviour) is worth more than his incredible (in the original sense_ testimony?

We're all told over and over again that in most rapes there is little evidence and it's "her word against his". I really wonder how often this is true.

This is a tangent, but relevant I think: I remember discussing attitudes to rape with a male friend who's now training to be a doctor. He was taking the view that you never really know whether or not a rape has occurred, whereas with other kinds of physical assault there's physical evidence.

It genuinely did not occur to him until we said so, that there is physical evidence of sexual activity (just as there might be cuts and bruises after a mugging). It amazes me - here's someone who has some medical knowledge and yet still truly believes that female private parts are some kind of invisible area.

Oh yes, shades of grey and a definite political layer. But that's different from "They should either use it for all crime victims or none" (from OP) which is pretty black and white itself...

Arguably it could be used for all offences, but then you'd get silly results like having to refer to "the alleged hijacking" or "the alleged bombing".

Imo this thread is starting to remove all of the politics out a situation like this. Certainly there will be legal definitions of these things, and media codes of conduct, protocols, processes etc.

But underneath all that are journalists making decisions on how they report things, politicians making decisions on process, protocols, laws etc, people in the legal profession making decisions on how to represent things. These are all people, making grey decisions, in a messy grey world, based on their opinion, 'the way the world is', 'common sense', structures such as the legal system, the political system, racism, sexism, patriarchy etc etc.

So it is interesting to look at the different ways things are represented, and apply a feminist lens to it. This isn't to say 'they are all out to get us' but neither is it to say 'but it's all just neutral process, law, protocol etc.' Imo there is no such thing. Everything is political and worthy of investigation and discussion.

This is what I was trying to illustrate a while back, there is no black and white it is all shade of grey, and where people choose to then draw the lines of what they put into their (or society's) black and white is inherently political.

What Grimma said. If there is definite physical proof that there has been sexual contact with an 11yo child then they have by definition been assaulted, because there is no such thing as consensual sexual activity with an 11yo. So you don't need to refer to an "alleged assault". You might very well still do it just because you've got into the habit of sticking "alleged" in front of anything that's still sub judice to avoid prejudicing any trial, and that's not a bad habit to get into. If there is no definite physical proof of sexual contact then you'd still have to say "alleged assault".

In the case of (say) sexual contact with an adult female then it is possible that there has not been an assault (i.e. the fact that there has been an assault at all is part of what needs to be proved) because there is such a thing as consensual sexual activity with an adult. So you always have to say "alleged assault" unless someone has actually pled guilty, or at least if you don't and part of the defence case turns out to be arguing that no assault actually took place at all then you are risking being found to have prejudiced the trial.

In either case the person accused of committing the (confirmed or alleged) assault would get an "alleged" label unless and until convicted.