should young girls go to prison for "false rape claims"

Yeah, I wish people would just accept that there are some nasty pieces of work out there that make accusations out of revenge/spitefulness/need for attention.

A lot of People do accept this

No they can't because you do not have plea bargaining in the UK, remember

Now you are really struggling. From my first post on the subject in this thread, "The nearest we get in the UK is when the prosecution agrees to drop a more serious charge if the accused pleads guilty to a lesser charge". Which is exactly what I described - the prosecution dropping a charge of GBH for a defendant who pleads guilty to ABH. That is very different to the type of plea bargaining that happens in the US.

It is clear that you have absolutely no evidence for your original assertion.

Octavia your right that vulnerable women could be coerced into making false confessions. I think this is more likely to happen with rape and domestic abuse cases because abusers will often deliberately target these women for such crimes because they don’t make good witnesses

For example, a defendant charged with GBH may plead guilty to ABH in order to get the GBH charge dropped.
No they can't because you do not have plea bargaining in the UK, remember?

If someone admits it was all lies, they've committed a crime and should be punished. They shouldn't get to walk free because of feelings that it could lead to fewer reports.

However I have noticed that a lot of people seem to think a not guilty verdict means she made a false claim. She probably didn't. She just couldn't prove something that's very hard to prove.

My concerns though are that a) vulnerable women or women with learning difficulties could be manipulated or coerced into saying they lied when they didn't, as I'm guessing false claim cases would be convicted more easily than rape cases. And b) some rape victims will say they lied just to try and make it all go away. A woman on this forum started a thread saying the same just a month or two ago. Her partner abused her, but she was worried for him and stressed about the case. People had to inform her she could be arrested if she lied about lying.

Yeah, I wish people would just accept that there are some nasty pieces of work out there that make accusations out of revenge/spitefulness/need for attention. Women can undoubtedly be reprehensible at times, even if us men commit the vast majority of violence, and most rational people understand this.

Absolutely wrong. In the UK the lesser charge and the more serious charge both derive from the same facts. So, if the accused may or may not be guilty of the more serious charge, they equally may or may not be guilty of the lesser charge.

For example, a defendant charged with GBH may plead guilty to ABH in order to get the GBH charge dropped. If they were in fact guilty of GBH they were definitely guilty of ABH. And even if they were not guilty of GBH they may still have been guilty of ABH.

You cannot plead guilty to a crime you definitely did not commit to get a more serious charge dropped. It doesn't work like that at all.

In any event, this has increasingly little to do with your argument that girls are being bullied into accepting plea bargains over alleged false rape claims when they are, in fact, innocent and are then being imprisoned by judges who ignore the agreed sentence because they like sending young girls to prison. As I have pointed out, that is definitely not true.

I think plea bargaining is more likely in US as opposed to UK because in UK judge decides sentence based on sentencing guidelines and so both defence and prosecution can’t guarantee they will get the sentence they want. In US both sides can agree the sentence and judge just rubber stamps it. They can overturn it but rarely do.
www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/04/09/judge-stunned-proposed-plea-deal-rape-case/uu0Rn7r3kPYu2tSX7REpXN/story.html

That is what law enforcement officers call it but the legal system officers seem to think it keeps the courts running smoothly.

I think that’s called ‘perverting the course of justice’.

Plea bargaining in both the UK and the US is a process whereby the accused pleads guilty to a lesser crime they did not commit in order to avoid being tried for a more serious crime which they may or may not have committed.

Deliberately obtuse as usual Rufus.

he evidence strongly suggests that young men are much more likely to be jailed than young women

That wouldnt be anything to do with them committing more crimes would it

You can be very literal sometimes...I'm guessing thats a massive bonus in your job

Yet, reputable scholarship has established that over 90 percent of all cases in the magistrates courts and approximately two-third of all cases in the higher Crown Court were resolved through a guilty plea or a finding of guilty upon failure of the defendant to appear in court.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were correct - but it doesn't indicate plea bargaining - more likely the defendants have overwhelming evidence against them and they are keen to enter an early guilty plea in order to obtain a full 1/3 reduction in sentence. Or is that what the American report means by 'plea bargaining' ?

I am very familiar with the Secret Barrister's book. Whilst he highlights a lot of things that are wrong with our criminal justice system, his book does not support what you are saying.

Here's another link for you.
www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken/dp/1509841105/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+secret+barrister&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1535578052&sr=8-1

That was great!

Thank you for the link thebewilderness. However, the first sentence in the abstract of this American paper undermines the whole paper by stating that most criminal cases in the UK are resolved by a plea bargain. That is simply wrong. For a start we don't do plea bargains in the American sense. In my experience, most lawyers in the criminal justice system want to keep it that way as they believe that plea bargains lead to people accepting convictions when they have not committed any offence. And, if it were true that most criminal cases are resolved by a plea bargain, the proportion of guilty pleas would be much higher than it is.

As per my earlier post, the only form of plea bargain we have in the UK is where a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge in return for which the prosecution drops a more serious charge. This usually happens either because the accused is testifying against a co-conspirator or the prosecution believes it will have difficulty proving the more serious charge. Your allegation that judges do not respect the deal made by the prosecutor is well wide of the mark. Unlike the US, the prosecution cannot negotiate the sentence. The judge cannot stop the prosecution dropping the more serious charge. All the judge can do is sentence the accused in line with the sentencing guidelines. And your comment that judges like to send young girls to jail is also wide of the mark. The evidence strongly suggests that young men are much more likely to be jailed than young women.

The only answer to that I have rufus is rape culture really exists. It was the jury made up of people from a normal background made this recommendation not the judge.

I think the number of women who are wrongly labelled as liars is probably higher than we will ever know.

Women being falsely accused is not widely reported unlike the perception of men being falsely accused.

In this it was proven that the woman was falsely accused but not many media outlets reported it but when a man wins an acquittal even though the woman has not proven to lie beyond reasonable doubt it’s reported as though it has been proven.
www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/22/victim-falsely-accused-of-lying-by-uk-hampshire-police-wins-payout

Make rape an actual punishable offence, in fact

Yes this.

And can we stop with the attitude that it's so unacceptable to inflict even mild embarrassment on an innocent male that it's preferable to allow rapists to run amok committing serious crimes against equally innocent women and children.

or even it's males'! Bedtime!

its' males'.

I don't think many women who have either tried to report a sexual assault to the police or weighed up the options and decided not to bother as it is so weighted against women could possibly agree with this suggestion.

Make rape an actual punishable offence, in fact. Never assume in law that a woman having sex once in their lives has consented to sex from anyone else who fancies it ever. Remove that attitude from Britain's disgustingly misogynistic culture along with it's male's feelings of entitlement to women's attention. Make the example of Nottingham standard throughout the UK. Make the UK a safe and law-abiding environment where women can walk freely without fear.

Then we'll talk.

How the fuck did he get away with that totally

And here’s another delightful example of an adult male not going to prison for rape. Ok it’s in America but so was the other Yovino story. So I guess the answer to the question is a big fat no again

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/doctor-rape-patient-shafeeq-sheikh-texas-sedated-jail-prison-sentence-a8499981.html%3famp