Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Ken Clarke differentiates date rape from 'serious rape'

773 replies

NotFromConcentrate · 18/05/2011 12:07

AIBU to think it's time he went?

OP posts:
JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 19/05/2011 10:28

erm, that was to carmina btw

carminaburana · 19/05/2011 10:29

Xstitch - I'm sorry, I haven't read the entire thread, (only the last couple of pages)
I'm very sorry that you have had a terrible experience. I hope you are ok now and that you received all the support you deserved.

boognish · 19/05/2011 10:31

A case of Ken being Ken (surprised at thought he might use politically correct terminology) and that's inappropriate given his position. But some of the comments above are a bit much, perhaps. All rapes are rapes, but some are more malicious, damaging and nasty than others, and you can't sentence all rapists to the same term of imprisonment.

SardineQueen · 19/05/2011 10:33

boognish you appear to be responding to points that no-one on this thread has actually made.

No-one has said that all rapists should get the same term.

LadyThompson · 19/05/2011 10:34

Am with you there, Kungfupanda, re: changes made by last government, and would also add the relaxation of the Higher Courts Qualification Regulations in 2000. But yes, off topic - sorry.

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 19/05/2011 10:34

It shouldn't be that hard, surely.

Rape = awful violent crime, serious sentence

Aggravating factors e.g.

GBH - add more years
Threats to kill - add more years
repeated attacks - more years

So there are no degrees of rape, but there are different kinds of context surrounding the rape, which is totally different.

Xstitch - I'm so sorry for what that man did to you.

MisterDarsey · 19/05/2011 10:34

Would it be worth reminding ourselves of what he actually said? Some of the comments here are straying away from that.

From BBC News:

When BBC interviewer Victoria Derbyshire told him "rape is rape", he replied: "No it's not, if an 18-year-old has sex with a 15-year-old and she's perfectly willing, that is rape because she is under age, she can't consent. What you and I are talking about is we are talking about a man forcibly having sex with a woman and she doesn't want to - a serious crime."

So the distinction he is trying to make is the one between (1) what Americans call 'statutory rape' ie it's defined as rape purely because of the age of the victim (who may or may not be willing) and (2) the kind of rape where the victim is an unwilling adult.

Of course he is wrong to imply that only the second kind of rape is a serious crime, but the distinction he's making is perfectly valid and (I assume) is the reason he took issue with the statement 'rape is rape' It's not about the level of violence or force involved, as some people here are suggesting.

Another point worth making is that the proposal to offer a 50% reduction in sentence in return for a guilty plea is not a completely new idea as defendants pleading guilty can already get a 33% reduction.

TandB · 19/05/2011 10:38

And slightly uncalled for.

This is a public forum and very few people on this thread are lawyers. If you wish to have a dig for some reason, have the courtesy to do so openly.

"the relaxation of the Higher Courts Qualification Regulations in 2000" means "I am a barrister and I have no time for solicitor advocates and think their place is sitting in their office sending work to proper lawyers". This was abundantly clear from your previous posts so this comment was entirely unnecessary.

Nancy66 · 19/05/2011 10:38

Usual hysterical overreaction I see - i totally agree with him. He just worded it in a clumsy way

wordfactory · 19/05/2011 10:39

Elephant that is exactly the point.

Every crime may have aggravating factors to it. If it does it will and should attract a harsher sentence.

This is not the same as saying that the crime itself is not serious.

xstitch · 19/05/2011 10:40

No carmina I didn't because to many people think like you do. That if you know your attacker and even more so if you have had consensual intercourse in the past you must have been 'asking for it' or at the very least 'not quite rape'. All I have had is complete humiliation every time I step over my front door and being force by the courts to put up with it. TBH the only people who have been supportive are some other MNers and my now DP, too many of you to mention sorry ladies.

You are right elephants no degrees of rape it is just sometimes accompanied by other crimes hence the legal framework for different sentencing. Of course there is the occasional daft decisons by the judges which are non-sensical to me.

SardineQueen · 19/05/2011 10:41

misterdarcey and the reason he raised "statutory rape" which actually doesn't exist, was to say that people in prison for this skew the average sentence figures because they get shorter sentences.

But 18yo don't go to prison for having consensual sex with their 15yo girlfriends. It was nonsense.

SardineQueen · 19/05/2011 10:42

nancy66 pleased to see that you have read the stories on here of women being raped by people they know and feel moved to comment that when they are upset at their experiences being dismissed as not serious rape, that you believe they are hysterically over-reacting.

SardineQueen · 19/05/2011 10:43

misterdarcy "So the distinction he is trying to make is the one between (1) what Americans call 'statutory rape' ie it's defined as rape purely because of the age of the victim (who may or may not be willing) and (2) the kind of rape where the victim is an unwilling adult. "

In this country the age at which a child cannot give consent ie our version of statutory rape is under 13. Do you really believe that it is not a serious crime to have sex with a child under 13?

xstitch · 19/05/2011 10:44

Yes nancy because all rape victims are weak and prone to hysteria. So you agree his comments are in the headlines to 'add sexual excitement' then. TBH I can't be bothered explaining why that statement is wrong again.

misterdarsey I think it is just the debate has just moved on and people are responding to other points made and it is no longer solely about what Kenneth Clarke said.

Nancy66 · 19/05/2011 10:46

I wasn't commenting on their stories i was commenting on the wilful misinterpretation of what he meant to say

FreudianSlipper · 19/05/2011 10:46

is it that hard to understand that a man raping his wife/partner, possibly the mother of his children, the man that women loves trusts rapes can be just as damaging as a woman being attacking in a dark alley by a stranger.

women have had to put up with being raped for years by their husbands, many of our grandmothers were bought up believing men need to have sex and they need to provide it keep them happy this was part of marriage and at last we are saying no more. being forced to have sex is rape, being ignored when you say no is rape its not hard to understand

the laws regarding marital rape were only changed in 1991, shocking to think before then a woman who married consented to sex when she married that is only 20 years ago

DontCallMePeanut · 19/05/2011 10:48

There's a difference in planned rape ( stranger waiting for unsuspecting female in dark alleys etc) and rape when you have known the man for months, maybe years - who knows what type of sex they may have been engaging in prior to the falling out or whatever

Carmina, I'm not even going to ASK what you mean there. But surely you don't think men who rape their partners is never planned? And I sure to hell hope you don't think it's any less traumatic. Surely the fact it's someone you know, trust and believe loves you who is carrying out the attack is traumatising in itself?

SardineQueen · 19/05/2011 10:49

"I wasn't commenting on their stories i was commenting on the wilful misinterpretation of what he meant to say"

Or alternatively

People are commenting on what he actually did say

xstitch · 19/05/2011 10:50

We know what he meant to say nancy fact is it is not what he did say and therefore gave a mixed, inaccurate and quite frankly dangerous message to the public. I have explained further up the thread why his clumsiness is bad IMO as have other MNers. If you wish to dismiss us as hysterics that is your perogative, but this is the new me I will not keep my mouth shut and my head hung in shame any more. I am going say what needs to be said and if I help any woman in any way with regard to rape then it is all worth it.

ScousyFogarty · 19/05/2011 10:51

Top judge lady

Mrs Justice Rafferty is a high court judge who has some opinions on the Net. About all aspects of of the lagal system including rape.

She is an ex-Grammar school judge, which makes her a rarity. They usually
come from toff backgrounds.

She is also a rarity that she has given interviews to BBC News and Channel 4 TV

In my view we need to solve the problem of so called date rapes never getting to court and when they do it is often a "not guilty" verdict. So
understandably women dont bother to go through the hassle of reporting these incidents.

SardineQueen · 19/05/2011 10:52

Or xstich he said exactly what he thought and has since had to desperately backtrack. From what I can see his suggestion that he thought date rape meant consensual sex between underage teens, does not stand up when you look at the other comments he made about date rape in the same interview.

xstitch · 19/05/2011 10:58

Perhaps sardine certainly enough for me to have no confidence in him. I didn't have any confidence in the justice system to lose.

jenny60 · 19/05/2011 11:01

so, so sorry to all the women who have been raped and have been brave enough to tell your stories Sad. I believe you and I just can't see why some other posters don't. It's all very well to premise every comment with 'all rape is horrible' but when you follow it with a denial of what the women on this post are telling you, I really do despair. Some of you may think there are degrees of seriousness in rape, but if you would only listen to the things real women are telling you about on this thread, you will find that your neat cetegories don't fit real experiences. How dare you try to impose degrees of awfulness on crimes which, though different in individual circumstances, can be and clearly are equally horrible and damaging for victims.

LadyThompson · 19/05/2011 11:01

Kungfupanda, you're quite wrong Smile There are some brilliant HCAs (for those non-lawyers, that means a solicitor who is qualified to represent their clients in the higher courts, like a barrister would) of my acquaintance. I'd have them act for me in a heartbeat. And some truly crap barristers, whom I wouldn't trust to represent a goldfish. But in my experience, (and I realise anecdotal evidence is not data), I know many more below par HCAs than I do below par barristers. And, bringing it back to the crime of rape (loosely, anyway), should I ever be in the hellish, intensely traumatising position of having been raped, generally speaking I'd want a barrister to represent me in court rather than a solicitor advocate. That's no disrespect to you - you might be stellar for all I know. But with rape conviction rates so low, it's surely worth considering the quality of the representation victims receive.