Changes in how rape will be investigated- about time!

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but isn't this concerning how rapes are investigated? I don't think burden of proof is being altered in any way, it is just an attempt to get more complaints taken seriously and followed up.

A buddy of mine's sister is a police officer, who works in whatever unit or department that tends to deal with these cases, and she is of the opinion that a certain significant percentage of allegations is false (I've not retained the precise number as I believe it's bullshit).

Thing is there is a lottery, depending on where you live will relate to precisely how seriously the police will take your complaint. My locality is certainly not the worst, but it's up there (hence why this particular officer's opinion is likely to be indicative of a regional bias).

This focus on how rapes are investigated, should help close these regional divides, help the police do a better job, and should be welcomed.

That article earned her a #NotNorman

hideous rape apology

That article was so full of rape myths, it was like the British Rapist Association had commissioned it.

will

I saw that, it made for very unpleasant reading

I won't link to it, but Sarah Vine has written a disgusting article in DM about this - seriously, what the fuck is her problem?

I honestly just despair

Agree house. A lot of people don't seem to realise that no defendant is cross-examined without first being examined by their own defence lawyer. The guidance does not force men to give evidence. If a man gives evidence, his own lawyer will question him first and he will be able to put over his story exactly as he wants to. Of course he will then be cross-examined by the prosecution lawyer who will test his case. The jury will see this and the other evidence and make a decision.

There are certain defences that just don't make sense if you don't back them up with further information. For example if someone says they have an alibi but refuse to say who it was, where they were, when etc., that's not going to be very persuasive to a jury. Reasonable belief in consent is exactly the same. All this hoo-hah over men being asked why their belief in consent was reasonable. It really does show just how little many people care about women.

Millions of women being raped = "bad but there's nothing we can do about it"

A man being asked why he thought a woman wanted to have sex with him = "THE HORROR! OUR FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES ARE BEING DESTROYED. AND WOMEN ARE LIARS."

In my very humble opinion, I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the changes because of shoddy, sometimes deliberately misleading reporting. And as I said earlier, this leads to a mix-up between what people wanted, even if they had been drinking, and what they didn't. A lot of discussions I have seen seemed to be along the lines of 'don't drink and shag', which is patently nonsense.

So what is the argument that people are making, who are saying that the do not want people who are suspects to be asked by police what led them to believe the other party was consenting?

Thanks cailindana. I have been shocked today at the responses this guidance has received. I made the mistake of entering into a FB discussion about it. I tried to be calm, logical, polite, stick to the facts and all that and I have had the most horrendous personal insults directed at me. I think I need to wake up and smell the hummus because I had no idea there was that level of antagonism out there.

Yes he was banned a couple of hours ago, I think the reports happened before the toying

Great blogpost, Basil.

Has our new pet been reported yet? MN Towers seem to be a bit slow in wielding the ban hammer.

I think that questioning a man accused of rape about his belief in sexual consent, then subjecting his belief to serious investigation before and during trial, is an example of a man's loss of unearned patriarchal privilege, not a loss of his legal rights. Patriarchal society has a long track record of confusing and conflating unearned male privilege with male legal rights.

I welcome this new guidance to police and prosecutors to encourage them to do their job properly under existing laws for rape. Perhaps this guidance will focus their attention on the strengths and weaknesses of the man's belief in consent as being important in rape cases, not an optional extra nor an irrelevance.

I think it's important to emphasise that this guidance is necessary because the police and prosecutors have not been doing the best possible job in investigating and prosecuting rape cases since ... forever.

The protests against this guidance remind me of the protests against guidance issued to judges about a year ago concerning less harsh prison sentences for women under certain circumstances. Outraged critics claimed that women would be treated more favourably than men. The reality was that the guidelines were to bring women's harsher sentences more into line with the more lenient sentences that men were already receiving for the crimes in question.

Lordy, reading the CiF and Daily Mail comments made me mad.

So I wrote a blog post on it.

Wah! How am I supposed to know if someone wants me to put my dick inside her body or not? Anyone would think I was a full adult human being who is capable of asking! Not fair!

Will now read rest of thread

The guidance says nothing at all about proof. It outlines the circumstances in which rape occurs and gives the police cues as to what to look for in a rape allegation. The aim is to improve the current situation in which rape allegations are hardly investigated at all.

Yes that's right Kachan. It's very unfortunate that some newspaper headlines said men must prove the woman consented. That is absolutely not the case. The defendant does not need to prove anything.

Here is a link to the actual guidance. It is quite odd to read actually because all it really says is that, you know what, women should be able to choose, freely, when to have sex and when not to have sex. That's all it really says. It is madness in this day and age that police forces have to be informed of that so that they do their jobs properly.

This is such an interesting thread. I have been snatching glances all day. Please can I ask why a person might see this change as undermining the burden of proof? I've got some fool on another forum screaming that it does. As far as I can see the burden of proof is still with the prosecution this simply means that the defendant needs to explain why he thought he had consent rather than he has to prove beyond all doubt that consent was given. Is that right?

I'm also wondering MoreBeta, seeing as you say your non-verbal signals with your wife have been built up over years, what happened when you were first going out with her? Was everything verbal then? Or did you just go ahead and do whatever and never actually know how she was feeling?

as with the sexual-encounter-that-isn't-rape, it seems as though the woman is entirely passive in the whole hypothetical situation

it's a hypothetical situation where he doesn't seem able to acknowledge that the woman involved (his wife, in the most recent scenario described) would have to report the encounter as rape

it's not like the police are picking a postcode at random and interviewing every single man about his most recent sexual encounter. they actually have to have had a complaint

MoreBeta I would have massive respect for you if you would actually address the points being made and indicate that you are at least consider that your stance doesn't make any sense.

The fact that you're continuing to bang on about a hypothetical situation where a man might have consensual sex and the woman might report him for no good reason makes you look like a rape apologist at best and rapist trying to justify his actions at worst. I'm not sure you are either of those things, although my rapist looked like a normal man too, and protested that he was doing nothing wrong when he put his penis in me as I slept.

I would really appreciate an answer to my question:
which situation is better:

• Expecting men to be absolutely sure their partner wants sex, up to an including actually asking them, with the result that some men don't get the sex they want