Keir Starmer says Rape investigations 'undermined by belief that false accusations are rife'

Bloody hell. This is beyond grim of the bbc

Apologies if this is posted twice, but my last post vanished.
I complained to the BBC using the link above. I am guessing that I will get the same answer but the more complaints they get I am hoping the more embarassed they will be at having to peddle the same excuses.

I really wonder what the BBC were doing/thinking. Either:

(a) they had an article already commissioned and ready to go about how devastating it is to be falsely accused of rape and they decided to shoehorn in a few references to the CPS report and rush it out on that day because it seemed 'current' - shoddy journalism at best, and fairly hard to believe IMHO

OR

(b) they read the CPS report and press release and deliberately decided to write and run an article devoted to exactly the kind of damaging myths the report we trying to get rid of - much more likely, and MUCH more worrying

The e-mail indicates that they're trying to persuade us it's (a) and that they're just inept; but it seems to me that it's much more likely to be (b) and that there's someone in Newsbeat with a malicious and misogynist agenda

For clarity we have replaced a word in the second sentence from ?common? to ?unusual?.

Dear Rod McKenzie.

Can you honestly, whilst keeping a straight face, ask me to take that sentence seriously??

What can we do about this?

It's really obvious that the BBC has an agenda to misinform the public about this - they've been told by listeners, women's groups etc. about the facts and yet they're still using our licence money to promote their mad agenda.

This is the response I got back from them:

We passed your concerns to Rod McKenzie, Editor, Newsbeat who has responded with the following:

?This was a story commissioned to specifically examine what it was like to be falsely accused of rape. To help contextualise the story we reported on a 17 month study carried out by the Crown Prosecution Service which set out to establish how common such false rape allegations were. In the past we have published many stories highlighting the issues surrounding rape and domestic violence, specifically targeted at our core audience of 15 to 24 year olds. Please find links for two such stories below:

www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17230648

www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17238674

On this occasion we chose to look at those young people ? usually men ? who are occasionally wrongly accused. We know from our audience research that among this group concern over this issue is commonplace ? we sought to contextualise this anxiety. I do not agree we misrepresented the study, or published an article that might somehow put people off reporting such serious crimes. However, having considered feedback I agree we were not clear enough in our wording. For clarity we have replaced a word in the second sentence from ?common? to ?unusual?.

In the fourth line of our story we quote the Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer who says false rape allegations are ?serious but rare?. In the accompanying video he makes the same statement within the first fifty seconds. Whilst our story hears from a young man who says he was wrongly accused, we ensure that rape victims are given a voice by running quotes from Dianne Whitfield from Rape Crisis. We also feature a video which contains a Nottinghamshire Police spokeswoman who says their starting point is always to believe allegations of serious sexual assault. She goes on to explain how thoroughly they investigate both sides of any allegation. Far from downplaying the seriousness of rape we finish our article by publishing the phone numbers of advice lines for people who believe they may have been the victim of rape or domestic violence.

On the day this story was broadcast we received a big response from our young audience, and we openly invited feedback on this challenging topic. Whilst some people did say our reporting of false accusations was damaging to real rape victims, on our Social Networking sites false accusations were described as ?disgusting?, and one young man told us that he felt the bigger problem was that these claims make life harder for real rape victims to be taken seriously. On Twitter another young male listener told us "Allegations of rape not only waste police time but wreck the lives of those accused! And another wrote... "My 23 year old nephew was recently accused of rape. He then killed himself. The girl did it again to another guy."

Our view is that all aspects of this story merit coverage and debate and we will continue to do so."

Thank you again for taking the trouble to get in touch with us.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints

Nothing about how they're going to balance the report with coverage of the real issue - the prevalence of rape and how much of a mountain it is compared to the molehill they've chosen to focus on.

Yes, I listened to the 5Live report - I thought it was a thoroughly irresponsible angle to take on this.

Here's how The Metro covered the story - a much more accurate respresentation of Starmer's report.

The bias and agenda of the BBC is obvious.

Oh, Treats, my DH told me he'd heard something awful about it on Five Live yesterday - that must have been it. I missed it unfortunately. More complaints to the BBC...?

*covered.

The Metro coveted the story accurately today. Shame on the BBC.

Did anyone hear the Victoria Derbyshire phone in on Five Live about this yesterday. Same angle. She twice spoke to callers who had personal experience of being falsely accused of rape (one was the mother of a boy who had been accused) and interviewed a Notts policewoman (possibly the same one referred to above) and expressly linked it to the publication of the CPS report.

I was furious that she didn't invite any contributions from people who had been raped to give their side. When the mother of the boy who had been accused said that she wanted to go into schools to tell girls about the devastation that false accusations could cause she didn't challenge her at all. I mean, it's not as if there's enough discouragement from reporting rape already, is there?

Here's the listen again link: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r54vr The interview with the mother is in the last 20 minutes of the programme.

The Huffington Post's home page right now has 'Why I Am Glad I Was Spanked As A Child' [with a rattan cane] as a lead article.

Nice.

oh God. I just read the comments on the Huffington Post.

Let's look at this objectively. The DPP produces a report saying he has examined a sample of evidence and found that false allegations are very rare. A media organisation responds with a report about the seriousness of false allegations. An intelligent 10 year old could spot the agenda there. Do these people think we're fucking stupid?

I do think the BBC will regret this.

They had a chance to put things right, and they didn't.

Things will come around, they always do in the end.

Nothing's going to happen about this, is it, they've just fobbed everyone off. The story is still there, still with its weird wording and misrepresentation of what the police spokesperson said.

Reading the comments on the huffington post and having seen similar many times including on here, it is clear that rape myths are absolutely believed by at least some people - and surveys show that can be extended to most people not just those commenting on websites.

So a report comes out to try and dispel that myth, citing false accusations as "very rare".

The BBC response to this is to run an article stating that false accusations are "very common" and focusing on them, implying that anonimity for accused would be a good thing and misrepresenting a police spokesperson by saying she is issuing a warning to victims.

It's just not on, is it? It's not just me. Why haven't they done anything? For a body like the BBC to do this - condoning and encouraging the myth that women lie - on the very day a report comes out from the CPS to try and dispel that myth - seriously it's outrageous.

And the fact it is still there after everything is just a kick in the teeth for victims of rape and DV everywhere.

I love the remark in the BBC reply about the need to show "two sides to the issue". Following that logic we'd hear from the rape complainant then the rapist telling us all why it was such a jolly good idea. No doubt we have that to look forward to, with the fuckwits in charge currently at the BBC.
And I pay my licence fee for this!

I wonder how the police officer who was interviewed has reacted to her video about assuring victims they will be believed and that their cases would be thoroughly investigated, being "reinterpreted" by newbeat as a warning to rape victims.
FFS.

That's a pathetic response, and the comments they've chosen as a response are just the icing on the cake

KateMumsnet Many thanks for the links.

Greythorne it was runningforthebusinheels who did the major detective work. She's very switched on!

Yes, the BBC response is seriously inadequate and very clearly shows that they just do not care. In fact, they seem to think that having perpetuated rape myths and gotten Facebook comments that confirm their success in doing so is A Good Thing.