Ulster Rugby Rape Trial - Not guilty to all charges

Yet apparently her facebook's full of naughty photo's and video's of herself? When she consents she doesn't generally seem to care who sees what? But now she's shy all of a sudden?

This to me is a clear indication that she did not consent to what was being done to her. People who enjoy having their picture taken when they are having fun and fooling around. Contrast that with someone who is being humiliated and raped. They do not want their picture taken when they are being raped and humiliated. How can anyone be surprised by that?
Men have gone to a great deal of effort since the 1986 preppy murder to convince society that women like rough sex and being tortured through pop culture mainstreaming of BDSM.
Why didn't she scream or use a safe word? Because as any martial arts trainee can tell you the first thing that goes when you are in shock or extreme pain is your ability to speak.

That's something that's puzzled me, Dukes. AFAIK, what matters is that the defendant had reasonable belief that he had consent. The standard for reasonable is meant to be the good old person on the Clapham omnibus, not any level of delusional belief whatsoever in the mind of the defendant (s). So how did we end up with a society which thinks it's reasonable for young men to believe they have consent to multiply fuck a woman till she's bruised and bleeding? In what possible scenario would this belief on the part of the men be seen by a third party as a reasonable belief on their part rather than seen by a third party as evidence that they harboured dangerous and sadistic delusions as to what constituted acceptable sexual behaviour?

Agreed - fucking depressing Dukes.

The level of injury she received, being seen as something that would be standard and normal in a sexual ancounter between people who don't know each other, is incredibly worrying.

Most women do not enjoy being hurt internally to the point that they are bleeding so much it soaks through their clothes. The fact that the jury accepted this as unremarkable - not in any way a pointer that something not good had gone on - is genuinely disturbing.

As porn gets more and more violent, and the "no kink shaming" types push harder and harder, it is going to become increasingly difficult for women who have been raped to get prosecutions even when there is evidence of quite serious injury.

where you are not derailing, you are very bravely sharing your story

where

It'd never be just a woman's testimony.

No woman would ever take it to court without other evidence.

They need to do something though. They need to change something.

At the moment what terrifies society is that one man somewhere might go to prison for a rape that was a bit consensual a bit rapey. That seems to terrify the men and they will do anything to avoid that. What they don't really object to at all is thousands and thousands and thousands of women being raped every day and every year and having no chance at all of securing a conviction.

Effic -

Probably a hangover from when women were property and rape was essentially a crime against another man's property (one that was not a crime if he did it to his own property).

When I say "witness", I mean "prosecution".

"In other words, do you have the courage to admit that what you really want is a system where a females testimony is all that is required to convict a man?"

I haven't read all the posts so far, so I don't know if anyone has made this point - I don't think they have, but in my view it's crucial.

In a rape trial, the defendant can say anything they like to blacken the name of the witness, including references to her past sexual conduct or her history or her personality, stuff she's said on social media - anything to blacken her name.

The witness cannot say what she likes about the defendant, because it might be prejudicial to the case. So she cannot say that he's been accused of rape before, or that he's made jokes about rape, or even that he's been convicted of rape, or that he's known to be a liar or a generally shitty person. None of that is allowed, so the whole thing is utterly and completely unequal.

In other words, women don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of securing a conviction.

I was thinking about the tea consent clip. Imagine if three or four people forced 1 person to have tea and that person had a burn or an injury from the tea.

Bumblebuzz I think they have to make misogyny the crime. Some language is not allowed. It's incitement to terror or hatred. I think the texts like those 'men' typed are incitement to abuse/rape or at the very least rape culture. That sort of language should be cracked down on. It should disappear off any platform that is moderated.

Agreed. Funny how lacerations to any other part of the body in any other type of assault would count. But not when rape is alleged. Sickening.

Internal injuries and psychological trauma should count as evidence

I’m devastated and depressed by this case.

If we were to start again with a blank page for defining the law on rape/consent, what could we do I wonder? If we can define it we can lobby politicians to change it. What if both (all) parties had to be able to prove they had given and received consent, rather than the current situation where women and girls have to provide that they didn’t consent. In this time of technology it surely wouldn’t be that hard for solutions to emerge - a whole plethora of tools are at our fingertips to communicate, transfer money, purchase online etc, a “consent app” isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. Of course such an approach could also be abused but we really are starting from ground zero so things can’t get worse surely.

Unfortunately effic that's the problem with our mysoginistic society & judicial system.

I literally can't cope with how fucked up the whole thing is. It's awful.

Oh my god...its catching

Sorry that should be

You

Obviously

Yiu alright wicked?

You haven’t derailed the post.
And yyy to this:

It is down to a rape victim to prove that she made her attacker aware that she was not consenting, in the eyes of the law. It is not down to an attacker to prove that he had consent.

In the law it apparently isn’t necessary for the man to put any effort at all into determining if the woman wants to have sex with him

I honestly don’t see what is so difficult. In any other area of life gaining consent is m clearly an active and clear and obvious process. You need consent of a relative to turn off a life support machine, to take organs (even if the person themselves has already given it while alive), for an under 16 to have their ears piearced, Christ you even need it these days to pass on people’s names and address under GDPR. At no point does anyone say “well I assumed they were alright with it because they didn’t say no” Or “I didn’t know they weren’t consenting, never mind.”
Why is it so hard - write a law that says “rape occurs when consent has not been given” then prosecute where the defendant can not prove they had consent. It’s really not that difficult - laws are re-written all the time if they prove to have unintended consequences or just not be fit for purpose. All the police “training” in the world isn’t going to help victims come forward if the actual facts are that the victim of rape has to prove they didn’t consent. Apparently politicians and the like are all “concerned” about low reporting and conviction rates so why the reluctance to sort it out? Am I missing something??

*next post

next point trying to point out

[Bangs head off wall]

Yet apparently her facebook's full of naughty photo's and video's of herself? "When she consents she doesn't generally seem to care who sees what? But now she's shy all of a sudden?"

"Ridiculous argument."

As I wrote in my next point, that's what I was trying to get point out. The face at the end didn't work (I musn't have hit it right).

You're correct unfortunately where - it's so fucked up

where

I really hope I'm not derailing this thread here, I am in full support of the Belfast victim, just want to highlight the fact that so many cases never even make it as far as CPS because of this "reasonable belief in consent" element.

It is down to a rape victim to prove that she made her attacker aware that she was not consenting, in the eyes of the law. It is not down to an attacker to prove that he had consent.