police who ignored a 17 y/o girl with mental health problems when she reported a rape should not have been given the option to retire on their pensions

[agentEgypt]

This is the story about Hampshire police who ignored this 17 year old girl when she tried to report a rape, and instead said they would charge her for perverting the course of justice and this made her self harm more and attempt suicide.

However she did get legal help and eventually they settled out of court. However 4 of the cops involved were given the option yo retire!

IMO they should have not been given this option, legally charged and have their entire pension removed.

[Icimoi]

It would be ridiculous to make a practice of stripping people of their pension pots. Where does it end? Do we only take pensions if they are provided by employers? If people have set up their own pensions privately, do those become vulnerable? If we did this, ultimately we would be doing Swiss bankers a massive favour as all that would happen is that pension schemes would be set up in whatever way is necessary to ensure that they could never be vulnerable.

[namechange0dq8]

It would be ridiculous to make a practice of stripping people of their pension pots

There is provision for removing pensions from police, NHS and other government employees, over the signature of a minister. Something was done about Harold Shipman's pension. For all the reasons you outline, I think it's very bad public policy, and would have all sorts of perverse incentives if used regularly. Happy isn't the right word, but paying pensions to wrong 'uns strikes me as a small price to pay to avoid some of the alternative outcomes.

It's effectively sequestration or (since it would affect widows and orphans in the event of the pensioner's death) attainder, punishing people by confiscation of assets without due process. Seizing a £20k pension is a fine of about £500k; there are almost no offences you can commit as an individual which would attract such a punishment, and if such punishments are on the table, the correct place to decide them is a court of law, not the ministers' offices.

[Burke1]

Fair enough that the rape allegation wasn't taken further, because in the absence of forensic evidence it was never going to go far. But her being arrested doesn't seem right - What exactly were the grounds for that and what was she arrested for? An absence of evidence of rape doesn't mean the alleged victim is lying, it means that there's no forensic evidence to substantiate the allegation. Hardly seems grounds to arrest her for perverting the course of justice.

Obviously no one here would expect the police to just believe her allegation, but arresting her seems strange. I can't imagine who would have made that call or why because unless there's something else we aren't being told there is no way you'd get a conviction for that.

[Burke1]

Oh, the article contradicts that.

"She was arrested over claims when forensic tests failed to return a result",

"Her daughter went to police about the attack, but was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice two months later after forensic tests on her clothes did not return a result."

[Burke1]

Ah so the article was a bit misleading. Sorry then as I got the wrong end of the stick. Does seem like gross incompetence here.

[bigbumtheory]

They should not be allowed early retirement, there should be a Full investigation with full transparency with them on suspension and then they should be fired. Their pension should not be removed, that paves the way for big corruption by unscrupulous bosses towards innocent people.

I suspect the failing goes further then these few people and they have been scapegoated to hide this hence why they have been retired early on full benefits.

[bigbumtheory]

That doesn't mean I think these peoples are innocent and scapegoated, they are.just the lowest of those who are guilty and failed this poor girl so they are given an incentive for being the only ones made to look it.

[TTWK]

If you want to get shot of someone because they are getting on a bit and are now pretty useless, it's far better to pension them off with mutual agreement than to start firing them. The result is the same, they are gone.

I recall the Sharon Shoesmith / Haringay Social Services case. Baby P. Lots of anger and emotion, jumping up and down, calls for her to be sacked. Grab ehr pension etc. Ed Balls jumped on the bandwagon and sacked her. And it turned out to be illegal to do so in the circumstances, and she won £650K in compo!!!

Emotion and anger along with public hysteria rarely lead to sensible and pragmatic decisions.

[TTWK]

The failing goes a lot further than this. Sadly this sort of thing is endemic in the police and there are far more cases of victims being ignored/disbelieved than we ever hear about in the news.

So if it never makes the news, how do you know about it? What's your actual evidence?

[TTWK]

That's awful Blackrider. Sorry to hear that. But was this recently? Things have changed enormously over the last few years.

Even if it was recently, a sample of one is hardly conclusive evidence.

I think in reality it doesn't happen very often at all, not these days.

[Burke1]

rider they have to investigate the possibility you are lying. It would be unacceptable for them to sinply take your word, that would be biased policing. They have a duty to exanine all avenues and that inlcludes not ruling out the possibility of a malicious allegation until it can be conclusively ruled out. Sorry to hear about your experience, i disagree with your last comment. There isnt institutionalised sexism in the police. Maybe in the past but not now.

[Icimoi]

I recommend people watch the BBC series "The Detectives" which is about a sexual offences investigation unit. The attitudes displayed by the police officers there are light years ahead of those of the idiot officers in this case and are really refreshing.

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Burke1 no the police do not as standard investigate the possibility that a person who reports a crime is lying, especially in cases where there is evidence that a crime has been committed.

Their general approach is to take a report of a crime at face value and investigate it, and if it starts to become apparent that the report is not what it appears to be at face value, then pursue that avenue in conjunction with the others.

Of course this is not the case with rape, where historically the approach has been to immediately disbelieve the person reporting the crime, and start investigating (usually) her.

The systematic failure of the police when it comes to sex crimes over decades has been in the papers almost daily for months and months. I find it mind-boggling that anyone is still so keen to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this.

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

The police will have given access to the BBC to that unit in order to present themselves in the best light after what has been in the news for so long, and to try and reassure the public.