Rape victims must hand over phone or police won't pursue crime

graziadaily.co.uk/life/in-the-news/rape-victims-phone-date/

as every single woman you grow close to and confide in has been beaten or raped or molested by at least one man.

This. In spades.

@gluteustothemaximus God only knows (and even she’s probably lost count). A friend and I were ranting a few days ago that our area seems cursed, as every single woman you grow close to and confide in has been beaten or raped or molested by at least one man.

Not reporting “my” paedophile was the best decision I ever made. The police rang my folks and asked if he’d ever been inappropriate to me and I lied and said no and heard no more. I happened to meet a fellow victim years later and she reckoned the investigation was as violating as the molestation.

I wonder what the real figures for rape are.

I’ve been raped twice by two different men in my teens, serious sexual assault on two occasions, too many stories of ‘mild’ sexual assault, and several rapes with an abusive ex. None reported.

Over the years, friends have been raped/assaulted. None reported.

My best friend from years ago was brutally raped and it did go to court. She was asked to testify and give her sexual history, what she wore, how much she had to drink. He was found guilty, but he’ll be out now from prison. He practically beat her almost to death.

Heaven forbid if DD is ever raped, but I’d probably advise not to report. It’s awful. So awful. And the amount of women who believe men get falsely accused ‘all the time’ is insane

There is a programme starting tomorrow night on Channel 4 called Sex On Trial.

www.tvguide.co.uk/detail/3242335/3451065/sex-on-trial

Wow that is an incredibly strong statement from appc

Glad someone in all this is not hell bent on persuading women /girls not to report, to save money and not have to get involved in what seems to be a contentious area.

APPC are asking for the form to be withdrawn. Encouraging that there are some people with some common sense.
www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/04/police-commissioners-criticise-rape-victim-data-request-form?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Memo

Also have spent a fair amount of time arguing with men who seem to think me saying rape trials should not be focussed on fucking myths, or womens underwear..means I hate men and want to see them locked up for lies

I always have the same problem.

On the other thread about this on AIBU, I explained that certain things that women do or how they behave after a reporting rape does not mean that they are lying. Because I understand the complexities of being a rape victim and that I don't think how a woman behaves should be used as proof of anything this apparently means I think that all men accused of rape should be locked up without trial and no women lie ever .

I know I am autistic and not always the best with wording and communicating things. But I still don't understand how anyone can come to the conclusion that I think all men should be locked up without trial and women never lie from simply pointing out that an alleged rape victim not being able to remember every tiny detail and getting things mixed up doesn't mean she's lying.

Do miscarriages of justice happen? Of course they do. I am not denying they do nor am I denying that false rape accusations happen.

However I can only think of two cases where men falsely accused of rape were convicted. Out of those two, only one was the stereotypical lying evil women which is the image usually conjured up for these types of cases. The other one was a stranger rape and the wrong person ended up being convicted.

Oh and she was asked repeatedly to provide some examples of this epidemic of falsely accused men but of course she didn't/couldn't. She still insisted it was a thing though.

Note the response to that cps tweet is women shouting about all the men in prison after being falsely accused of rape :/

I once had a conversation with a woman who was convinced that not only were the majority of rapists both reported and prosecuted but that there was also an epidemic of falsely accused men being thrown in jail.

The fact that rape is a tough crime to prove and prosecute, that you need quite a fair bit of damning evidence to even get people accused of a crime to court in the first place never mind convict them and the fact that only 6% of accused rapists are convicted was completely lost on her.

There's just no reasoning with some people.

She also pointed out a possible 'loophole' I had not thought of. Given rapes are usually comitted by someone the victim know, all it would take is after drugging her or whateverm send a couple of textx, leave a 'selfie' of the two of them somewhere on the phone..or whatever. As if there aren;t enough ways already for rapists to get off with it, its simply another.

After having spoke to a couple of female friends about this I am even more annoyed. One of those friends secured a rape conviction a few years back. There was a fair bit of evidence, but of course the bloke was using stuff such as 'she consented to being restrained to such an extent there were marks weeks later', witnesses heard her shouting no but they were roleplaying as she had a rape fantasy (!) along with others. She reckons, basically if she had to surrender her phone then there would not have been a conviction, because she had some selfies on there that she had sent to a partner once, in underwear and less which would obviously have been used as more proof she consented to the rapist as only virgins are ever actually raped. Was hard enough to get a conviction to start with, and she thinks this would have been just one extra thing to go against her. I don't disagree. And think this is exactly the kind of thing it will be used for. On tinder, clearly looking for sex with randoms so must have consented, selfies, after attention and consents to every man who wants to shove his dick in her clearly, ends messages with x..tease. And so on.

I wish I didn't automatically think this way, but following many many rape cases, I have no other option, as I know how women are treat when raped, and how men get away with horrendous behaviour.

Also have spent a fair amount of time arguing with men who seem to think me saying rape trials should not be focussed on fucking myths, or womens underwear..means I hate men and want to see them locked up for lies Hell, one of these men even concluded that it does look like false accusations (where a man actually knows about the accusation, so at arrest stage, which is 6 per year..) really are vanishingly rare, but actually said its better than an extra 1000 rapists go free than those 6 men ever get arrested. Thats the problem in a nutshell tbh, false accusations ruin m,ore lives than rape apparently, and men are more improtant than women. Seems to be the long and short of it.

Jesus @Deathraystare that is appalling

Heard about this and was particularly chilled by one poor woman being told NOT to seek counselling as the records would be used-What the actual Fk????

I get more and more angry at stuff -everyday our rights are being more and more eroded.

They were discussing this on Question Time tonight. A lot of mansplaining going on as well as the refusal to see the issue for poorer women on UC

FloralBunting

Thank you! All becomes clear now. Should have gone to Specsavers 😁

It's clearly down to the individual what they report to the police.

I don't like the idea of others giving specific advise or encouragement to victims not to report to the Police.

E.g Many girls in Rotherham were let down by the Police. However, I still think if an 11 or 12 year old is raped by a 50 year old man. The best advice is to report it. Despite past failures.

Men rape men too, it's true. Men have a rape problem.

Langrish this board is the explicitly Feminist section of MN. It's called Feminist Chat, or FWR, which is the older name short for Feminism and Women's Rights.

menuPlant

Take your valid points. On occasion though, I think there is a genuine case for evidence gathering from relevant data but no, I don’t immediately know how you do that without risking irrelevant intrusion, I’m not a techie. There must be a way 🤷‍♀️

This point addressed to the PP who said this was a feminist board. Didn’t realise it was? Thought it was about rape. Some men are victims of rape too. Not nearly as many, I know, but they count.

Until victims stop being treat like criminals on the stand, cross examined way harsher than the rapists are, knickers held up, past sex life used as proof of consent, a drop of alcohol being touched meaning she consented, obvious physical injuries being written off as BDSM, TAPE RECORDINGS BEING DEEMED NOT GOOD ENOUGH, rape myth after rape myth being brought up, and so on, I will continue to believe that its rarely the best thing for a woman to report rape, and as such would advise family members not 'against it' as such but..let them know the likely outcome, and the likely behaviour they will be on the receiving end of along with the ridiculously low conviction rate because so many believe that thousands upon thousands of women simply regret sex so put themselves through the ordeal of 'crying rape' or just want revenge and thousands of men are languishing in jail because of these plentiful horrid women or whatever reason idiots use to make out false accusations are epidemic. Which in turn would probably generally convince people not to bother. But being honest with people is not a bad thing. And people knowing what to expect, helps them a lot I think, as I am sure it can be quite a shock to the system if you do not realise quite how horrifically rape cases are dealt with in this country.

Years ago there was a woman who was gang raped. Man she was seeing turned up at her place with a whole bunch of mates.

They got off as she had shared fantasies of rape with the man. Not gang rape. And just fantasies.

So any woman who has viewed or read or discussed anything like that with anyone, is going to struggle to get anywhere.

This is all just true. We know how the world works. The stats back this up.

Of course it is good for women and girls to report, but it is up to them, no one should imply they have to. Especially in this climate.

None of the women I know that have been raped reported it.

Rape victims triage themselves against rape myths / is there any really good evidence /and now, is there anything in my phone (steamy stories etc). And most of them don't report. Because they're not stupid, they know how all this runs.

If my 11yo DD got some man on the net who persuaded her to send a pic with her top off, would I report to police.

No, as I don't want her to be told she might be prosecuted and not just blamed for what happened but criminalised, with no comment on the man. And the view of society as demonstrated on MN and so probably softer than general public, is that this is good as it would teach her a lesson.

I have looked up that case since, no follow up. I have no idea if the girl was prosecuted, nor if they bothered looking about the man.

So no I don't think I'd report that.

And that's perfectly understandable. I'd assume.