Changes in how rape will be investigated- about time!

Yes it doesn't give you the greatest confidence does it? But of course men have no reason to lie about raping women and consent....oh wait...

Scallops, in the single page of a police notebook that CE has reproduced on his website, there is a note that CM said "yeah, she was consenting"

Now I realise I'm bounding into speculation here and maybe the next few un reproduced pages were full of incisive questions, but I wonder what question produced that phrase as an answer?

Buffy - its fine. Don't worry. I know what you meant.

Yy SardineQueen. I find it hugely worrying and more than a little sinister that for this guidance to have been produced these types of questions clearly aren't being asked already. And if they aren't being asked, what are they asking rapists?

But there is no change to the law.
Nor to the court process.

Police and prosecutors have new guidance around how to handle rape cases.

For the police it means focussing more on the behaviour of the suspect than previously - "did she consent" asked of the suspect rather than "what did you do to lead him on are you sure you aren't making it all up" to the victim.

For prosecutors to make sure that they give full consideration when deciding whether to bring cases including what the suspect had to say about the whole thing in terms of their actions and what happened - which often has not been considered - and this would lead to more cases of the Ched Evans type being brought (it was his own narrative of events that night that convicted him).

I simply cannot understand why anyone would have a problem with this.

What is wrong with asking people who are accused of sex offences to explain how they knew they had consent (if they are saying there was consent). Why would anyone argue that the police should NOT ask questions around that, which is what seems to be the argument.

I can't think of another crime where people would argue that the police should not be allowed to ask any questions of the suspect beyond "did you do it"....! And if the answer is "No" then the police go "OK alright then off you go sorry to have troubled you"...

X post! Phew, you are still reasonable!

And actually, if a man thinks he can't manage not to rape someone unless he's got a contract to hand, well, maybe that should be his tactic then. Better than accidentally raping someone.

Buffy, did you mean "the former"?

Apocalypse

good point well made

I don't know if any of you have ever been cross-examined. I have, quite recently for about 12 hours over the course of two days. It is not about telling your side of the story. You are not allowed to. You are only allowed to answer the questions put to you and a barrister is trained to 'control' the person being cross-examined so they know the answer the witness has to give. This is not about finding out the truth it is about achieving a conviction. That is the job of the barrister.

There will have to be a lot of new case law established here. The problem is the new guidance works very well in date rape cases but not so well for other cases.

I really dont think 'non verbal' signals can be relied on as a defence if you read the new guidance in a strict sense. I don't know how judges will guide juries - there are a lot of uncertainties as to how this wlll be applied in practice. Without a clearly verbalised 'yes' I am not sure how any other defence would be interpreted.

Er no, fuckwits. If you honestly can't tell the difference between 'up for it' and 'not up for it' then I feel sad for you, but there is always time to learn.

Oh god no, don't encourage them. If you honestly can't tell whether someone wants the ride off you, best just leave women alone.

And yeah, puffins I find the speed at which false rape claims are always brought up horrendously depressing.

And ditto the 'oh so now men have to have a signed piece of paper from a woman in order to shag her'.

Er no, fuckwits. If you honestly can't tell the difference between 'up for it' and 'not up for it' then I feel sad for you, but there is always time to learn.

Saying that it's 'guilty until proven innocent' is exactly like saying people who claim a murder is self defence should not be questioned as to why exactly they believed their life was threatened.

As with that defence, there is something that is not in question: someone died / people had sex. The question is what motives and methods were behind that action.

Yes, because the tiny number of 'false accusations' must be beaten with a stick, while the enormous number of men who get away with serially raping women should be able to carry on.

I can't even...

So you don't think the police should ask men how they knew their partner was consenting to sex, if there is an accusation of rape.

Really?

I can't see what the big deal is. Seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me.

IRL if I met a man who argued that he didn't see why men accused of sex crimes should have to answer questions like that I'd be giving him a swerve on the being by ourselves front TBH.

I don't think writing off as annoying nonsense, the questions about false accusations etc, is really sensible.

Although such accusations are very very rare, don't we test how well the criminal justice system protects fundamental rights such as 'innocent until proven guilty' by concocting extreme hypothetical examples? Doing so does not undermine victims IMO