to worry about the accused?

[WitchWay]

DLT for example. How is anything going to be proven? Are people jumping on a bandwagon or am I very wrong to even think that? I don't condone abuse - far from it - but surely they can't all have been sailing along in JS's wake - can they?

Yes, of course it was about you OP.

What is it that you find so hard to understand?

People who are telling the truth but are disbelieved feel aggrieved.

That goes for whether you've been wrongly accused of rape or pushing in the queue at Sainsbury's.

Or you've been raped and someone, and I'm going out on a limb here, posts on an internet forum that you're jumping on a bandwagon.

Have I misjudged you? Do you feel hurt? Never mind. Dry your eyes. I'm sure you'll get over it.

After all, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

NiceTab I meant that it can be difficult to accept that one/you/we/society misjudged someone. These men - OK with hindsight they all look fucking a bit creepy & some of them looked creepy at the time. There is a sort of bereavement experienced by people who have lost something by means other than death, be it a partner, a relative, a job, a home or even an ideal. We doubt our powers of judgement for a while & it can be very unsettling/upsetting. That's what I meant.

Limitedperiod - ITA. The people that were fined for naming her on twitter had to pay her compensation - and were then moaning that she was "cashing in on it"

The website mentioned also has six "witness" statements on it that were inadmissible in court - this fact greatly upsets the Ched supporters. The fact is - the six statements were about the victim's previous sexual history, which of course had no relevance at all to the incident in question.

Also another rape myth - of the "she's a slag" variety. Whether she was a virgin or had slept with half the male population of North Wales had no bearing whatsoever on whether she consented to that man on that night.

limited why are you being so unreasonable? I have apologised for causing offence & am trying to have a rational debate. You haven't hurt my feelings - sorry to have to tell you that. Of course people who have been telling the truth but are disbelieved feel aggrieved, whether they are accusing or accused. Why wouldn't they?

And yet you appear to be more worried about the effect on people who have been accused of sexual assault than about the effect on people who have experienced sexual assault.

OK that makes sense witch. I wasn't quite sure what you meant but that has cleared it up. As in, people misconstrued them as being nice people, when all along they were abusive bastards.

Exactly NiceTab

Annie that wasn't my intention. I just like to try to be fair.

limited why are you being so unreasonable?

I don't think I am, but I could be wrong.

I tell you what: let's have a mass debate.

AIBU or are you?

I actually think we all agree with each other on this thread, with varying degrees of overlap, a bit like a Venn diagram. I'm happy to be thought unreasonable, as long as I have a chance to explain my position.

I actually think we all agree with each other on this thread

No, really, we don't

You missed a bit with varying degrees of overlap - your & my overlap is very very small

Rre-reading your thread title and your OP, I have to say I don't think we agree either.

Oh well, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it - cheers

"We all agree on this thread"

Are you having a laugh?

OP, I do not think YABU to worry about the accused. Though I would think you were unreasonable if you were worrying about the accused far more than the victims.

But I do not see how there can be anything wrong with showing some concern for the accused in certain cases. Especially in the current climate. False allegations are only a small %, but they do exist, and as far as I can see no one is denying that. I say this as someone who has personal experience both of rape and reporting to the police myself, but also personal experience of someone close to me being (it would seem) falsely accused. Obviously I will never know whether it is a false allegation or not, as an acquittal does not mean innocent.

And I have read the CPS report on false allegations, and it says that if there is evidence that the accused has fabricated evidence, then it should be borne in mind that she may have fabricated it because she was afraid she would not be believed. I am really uncomfortable with that. I like the comparisons to other crimes, i.e. the stats that can show that the rate of false reporting is no higher with rape than with any other crime...But how does this bit about making allowances for the fabrication of evidence fit with reference to other crimes? It doesn't, does it, because if you fabricated evidence in any other crime no allowance would be made.

I really do think it is very sad that women may feel they need to fabricate evidence, and maybe that is the worst thing about it, but I find it so hard to see how this can be fair or just.

Can you link to the CPS piece about fabricating evidence please? I've not seen it, and would be interested to read it.

www.cps.gov.uk/publications/research/perverting_course_of_justice_march_2013.pdf

See page 31

Oh that hasn't worked, hopefully this will

www.cps.gov.uk/publications/research/perverting_course_of_justice_march_2013.pdf

I'd also be interested not that i'm agreeing with Nice you understand

As for "all agreeing on this thread" that's not actually what I meant (AAAAAARGH) as anyone who finished reading my sentence would have twigged. We all overlap in our opinions to some degree. Blimey I think I must be speaking something other than English. Sigh.

Thanks

Maria have you read the whole document?

I think you are massively mis-representing what it says, to be honest.

I wonder why you would read that whole piece, and then come to the conclusion that is what it is saying.

They talk about a whole load of different case studies and situations, and for you to boil it down to "CPS say give women leeway if they make shit up" is really not on IMO. That is not what the document says, at all.

The first part I read was about giving leeway to women, when considering prosecution for perverting the course of justice, when they falsely retract rape statements. ie they have been raped and honestly report it, but then for whatever reason (threats, fear etc) they say they made it up.

It also talks about mental health problems, and people who have not actually reported a rape to the police in the first place, other situations. A whole bunch of scenarios.

Have you really read all of it? If you have and that is the conclusion you came to, that is a bit odd.

From the skimming / intro & conclusion it looks like a very interesting and informative document (if anyone else wants a read).

Part of the opening:

This report outlines the key findings from the review of those cases and the steps that we plan to take. Importantly, what it shows is that charges brought for perverting the course of justice or wasting police time for an allegedly false allegation of rape or domestic violence need to be considered in the context of the total number of prosecutions brought for those offences. In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, 6 for making false allegation of domestic violence and 3 for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.

Furthermore, the report shows that a significant number of these cases
involved young, often vulnerable people. About half of the cases involved people aged 21 years old and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties. In some cases, the person alleged to have made the false report had undoubtedly been the victim of some kind of offence, even if not the one which he or she had reported.

This review has highlighted the complex nature of these cases. Prosecutors need to look critically at the behaviour and credibility of all those involved, not just the person making the complaint.

It is an interesting read

NiceTabard, I can assure you I have read the whole document.

I did not come to the conclusion above, I just happened to mention the point above about the fabricating of evidence because that was a small point but one that tbh shocked me.

My more general overall impression was that the cps document is counting only instances where it's provable in the legal sense that the allegations were false. The review focuses upon young/vulnerable women, women with mental health difficulties etc. - and says that this is the group of women who are most likely to make false allegations - but could it not be the case that this group are simply the group more likely to have been found to have been making a false allegation??

I would like to know how many instances there are where the police suspect a false allegation but have no proof it's false. But I realise the stats on that aren't available, and I fully realise of course it's just a drop in the ocean anyway compared to the number of men who get away with rape. I realise my viewpoint isn't a popular one on here, and I am very torn by my own personal experiences, but I guess I wish it was all much more black and white than it can be on this issue.