I heard the tail end of a news story about this on the radio this morning - I only caught the part about offering 50% sentence discounts for guilty pleas and missed the part about these comments.
I would like to think that this was a slip of the tongue and he was intending to differentiate between consensual sex narrowly below the age of consent - what the US calls statutory rape - and "proper" rape, ie non-consensual sex. However, sadly I don't think it was a slip of the tongue and I think he has let slip that he, like many others, does not consider so-called date rape to be actual rape. I might have been more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt had I not heard a lay magistrate say something in court recently which reflected a very worrying, out-dated attitude - I posted about this on the clothing/rape thread.
In terms of the underage sex issue, I think this should be dealt with very differently from non-consensual sex. I also posted on that other thread that I think it would be helpful if rape, whatever the circumstances, was effectively dealt with as completely separate to all other sexual offences, rather than being treated as the most serious form of sexual assault - I think we do currently have a situation which invites a sliding scale mentality and I also think it would help to emphasise that rape is, at its heart, an offence of violence, not of "stolen sex", if that makes sense.
I would like to reiterate a view that I have expressed before on these sort of threads and that is that it is very easy to have a knee-jerk response and say "well our criminal justice system is rubbish". The system isn't perfect by any means, but there have been some important improvements over the last few years and people often cite outdated practices. For example, someone on the other thread asked why rapists are allowed to cross-examine their victims. This has not been permitted for a long time - no defendant in an offence involving violence or sexual matters is permitted to question the complainant. If the defendant is self-represented then the court will, at the expense of the central court fund, instruct an independent defence solicitor for the sole purpose of asking those questions. I have acted in this capacity on more than one occasion - the idea is to place a filter between the defendant and the witness - I have had to weed out inappropriate questions that would otherwise have been asked.
Another misconception - the complainant is generally not questioned about her sexual history these days. It would be unusual circumstances that led to it being permitted and the assumption is that no such questions will be asked.
The system has recognised the problems inherent in these cases and has made changes, but it does worry me that people are very quick to call for the removal of such cases from juries and the removal of the right for complainants to be questioned in court. These are fundamentals of our justice system and to start removing them gives rise to some quite scary prospects.
I think there is much that needs to change but I think relatively little of that can come from the law itself. I think the CPS need to have a serious look at how their victims/witnesses are supported and involved in the case in the run-up to trial, but more importantly I think the views of society still need to be challenged, because what it generally comes down to is what 12 ordinary people believe about rape. If they believe the myths they will generally acquit. If they are better informed then they might still acquit, but they will at least give proper weight to a complainant's account in the absence of any other supporting evidence.
Domestic violence often involves one person's word against another - conviction rates are much better. Obviously this is partly because there are always going to be injuries of some sort if the offence is serious enough to come before a jury at the crown court, whereas with rape there may be no evidence other than the complainant's account, but I think that some of this discrepancy comes down to the fact that society's attitudes towards domestic violence have moved on and attitudes towards rape have lagged behind.
I didn't mean this to be so long but it is something I feel very strongly about - rape is something that is dealt with in our criminal justice system, like all other offences and yet it has real problems that don't seem to affect other offences. I think the government keep coming up with gimmicky, knee-jerk responses to this issue. I don't think rape should be "ring-fenced" within the justice system with laws and procedures changed piecemeal to deal with the problems - I think the problem has a much deeper root in the attitudes of society.
The 50% reduction thing is a classic example - it is a gimmick. If someone won't plead guilty for a drop from 6 years to 4 years, say, they are not going to do it for a drop to 3 years. The government just want to be seen to be doing something about an uncomfortable issue.