People accused of sex crimes shouldn't be given anonymity

[GallicGarlic]

I am positively astonished that, as they face sex crime allegations, MPs say sex crime suspects deserve anonymity.

This will mean no e-fit pictures of suspects, no CCTV releases, no calls for other victims to come forward. AIBU to think this is jolly convenient for serial perpetrators? And to ask you to sign a petition?

Scoff a lot of the time people don't even consider sexual assault as what it is as its so normalised that women expect it. Most people wouldn't talk about street harassment or groping in a night club as a lot of people don't consider that sexual assault.
I very much doubt your colleagues would tell you if you they were victims of rape either. Very close friends and family members might but then not always. It may be years ago also!
I wouldn't tell colleagues about things that have happened to me. Partly because one assault was many years ago so why bring it up and also because I don't want to talk to colleagues or even friends about it.

Just the other day at work a woman was saying her friend had been wanked at on the train after a night out the previous evening.

The vast vast majority of women and girls have had unwanted sexual behaviour at them, whether it's at the "low" end - groping, feeling up, following, pestering, being wanked at, less at the more serious end but really it's extremely common.

My friend was 14 when a bus driver said he'd let her off her fare if she showed him her tits - that sort of stuff happened occasionally and we all laughed about it and told no-one because that is what girls were socialised to do in my day when men did stuff like that.

Sex offences are incredibly common, so common that many incidences are considered as nothing even worth mentioning. To take this to mean they aren't happening is odd.

When I talk to my friends most of them have had sex which was coerced, or they woke up to find someone having sex with them, or they were too pissed to be able to do anything about it. Just most women see that stuff as an occupational risk of being female and brush themselves down and get on with it and don't ever think about the legalities of what happened. This doesn't actually mean that a crime hasn't been committed though, and maybe this is the problem here. A lot of people only see rape as excessively violent stranger stuff and if it's "just" assaulting a colleague after a few drinks on a night out then that's just normal isn't it, she should put up and shut up and not bring down a good man or whatever always gets said.

In plenty of the "false accusation" cases what it actually means is "yeah he did something but I don't think it's bad enough to be labelled "rape" and for sure he shouldn't be punished why is she making a fuss".

1 in 3 women in Britain have had an abortion. Have a third of the women you know had abortions? There are some things most women don't talk about, however open they are about their life. The majority of women rrely, if ever, talk about being raped or sexual assaulted.

Pilchard you hit the nail on the head right there.

Fuck that! I must be a very strange woman then... none of Pilchrad's remarkably desolate post describes my life.

Yes, I have met unwanted advances, but I have never, ever simply walked away. I have never put up and shut up. Why? My dad taught me better!

It's not a desolate post

Calling other people's lives "desolate" is a bit bloody harsh!

Also to say that me and all my friends have not been brought up correctly is appalling!

Does it occur to you that maybe we live in different parts of the country? For instance? Or that you have just been extraordinarily lucky?

Saying that children should "walk away" when they are approached by older men is a bit naive as well.

There are a myriad of reasons why many children don't, and that is the reason we have so many laws around sex and children.

My dad taught me well

I think retracting that might be... ideal.

The most desolate thing on this thread is the amount of victim blaming and rape myths getting posted.

Yeah! That would be about right. Shout down the woman who says that she won't be quiet, that her life experience, parental teachings and personal history has taught her to stand up and be counted, not to be cowed.

OK... so I retract my post.. what does that leave you with? A sad and feeble perspective of the female race, fated to be bossed around by men and utterly incapable of standing up and saying no!

My dad did teach me well. And if you read into that anything other than he was a man who taught his daughters to be strong and independent, then shame on you! Man hating idiocy at its best!

Pilchard if you read what I actually posted I didn't say you were badly brought up or that your life was desolate, I passed no comment no you or your life at all. Just my opinion on how my life could not be explained by your post... but I suppose that such 'spin' is par for the course.

Does anyone know what the DPP has to say about this?

Normama so you think that you never have been sexually assaulted because your dad taught you well.
Do you mean that he taught you not to trust any man in the family, incl himself? Or your bf?
Did he taught you not to trust friends either?
Because most rapes are done by people you know, fathers, uncles, very close friends if the family. They are perpetuated by boyfriends or friends you've met down at the pub. The one who us kindly offering to take you back home. Not by a stranger that you need to fob off.

And THAT is the reason why it's do hard to push these people away. Because you know them and they know you.
Because then actually reporting them to the police is even more difficult. Can you imagine the consequences and the pressure on the woman doing that?? The effect on her family, friends and god forbid if she also has children!

Implying that you just need to be taught well is and :(

My dad taught me well

What a dad/mother/carer/society would have taught their daughter has changed over generations certainly my nan's generation a woman shouting at a man in public to leave her alone would have been considered unladylike like along with well there are dirty men about just try and avoid them they don't mean any harm attitude

This attitude has been hard to change but it is slowly women were told shut up and put up (children too) there was no encouragement to deal with the dirty perverts As the damage they caused was just not open to discussion

And I am not surprised some on here claim they do not know any women whom have been sexually abused or assaulted even on the lower scale we often sense unconsciously who will be accepting of what we say (and there can be many reasons why people are open or closed to talking about difficult issues) I imagine this has more to do with you not knowing as a fact

You can teach children to stand up to others as much as you want but that won't stop some of them falling prey to abusers.

Some children don't have dads who are telling them how to deal with this stuff.

Ra ra ra look after yourself cos no-one else will is all well and good apart from the fact that it condemns all of those who can't or won't look after themselves for whatever reason to a whole heap of shit.

It's standard self-determination right wing style rhetoric I suppose but even the most ardent right-wingers usually blanches at the idea that children should be left to fend for themselves when faced with sexual abusers. Well apart from the ones (and from other parties also) who are about to be facing some extremely difficult questions obviously. Happily, due to their position in society (living in children's homes etc) most of these children were left to fend for themselves, while being abused by people in power, while the police turned a blind eye.

The IDEA that the children at the centre of all these cases did something wrong it's just vile. That they weren't strong enough, or smart enough, or moral enough, or whatever it is.

In many of these cases victims told the police and were told to sod off. What the fuck else were they expected to do.

I could accuse you right now of beating a baby or mugging a pensioner or torturing a puppy or plotting a terrorist act.

Why do you think it's OK to be identified for those crimes but not rape?

I am not sure police did turn a blind eye. I feel this is a way of passing the blame on to others

Reports were made and followed up, certainly from the top actions were taken to cover these reports but who were these from

It is so much easier to blame the police force, but when you come up a wall of silence, when you are threatened with losing you job, when there was not the openness to even discuss child abuse or a media wanting to report these stories what position were they in

The blame is not with the police (though aware few were covering for themselves allegedly) it goes higher than that

Police have been implicated in cover up.
This is the Met don't forget who have a list of illegal and corrupt activity against them as long as your arm, running through the whole organisation, for years.
Cabal of wealthy, powerful, famous, politicians, media and police all in cahoots.

recent link re met and this latest investigation and of course there has been all the other stuff about them over the last few years.

It wasn't just the police obv, but for sure they were turning a blind eye and question marks over them protecting people.

They have also of course found to be corrupt around their relationship with the media, they have mishandled investigation after investigation (sex crimes usually), they shredded lorryloads of documents under very suspicious circs recently during an enquiry, problems with institutional racism and so on it just doesn't go away and is an awful list.

All of this ties in the with OP of course in that the timing of this call by politicians for anonymity for sex offences, just when politicians are about to be investigated for sex offences....

Same old same old isn't it and it's laughably obvious and yet people are all yeah yeah great idea

There is suspicion that some of the children were murdered, if the suspects also raped them then does that mean their names will be kept quiet or not?

I was walking home around 11pm and came across a group of teenage lads who shouted "hey, why don't we just rape this girl", among other obscenities. Definitely harassment and intimidation. However, I chose to walk away rather than risk them actually attacking me physically.

When I reported this to the police, I was told "it was probably just lads showing off to each other", "if we wrote down every time something like this happened there'd be loads of reports". The person simply did not want to record what happened to me, and suggested it was really common. When I insisted, he gave me an incident number rather than a crime number, even though it was definitely a crime. The police (as an organisation) most certainly DO turn a blind eye in many cases.

Maybe my dad taught be wrong and I should have tackled them directly rather than walking away. I am happy with that decision though, as I was not physically harmed.