to be outraged at this judgement and the whole establishment

[Chchchchange]

A man has been cleared of raping a girl. He claimed he 'fell' and might have "accidently" penetrated her as a result. He took two girls back to his flat and had sex with one before this incident.

This is beyond a joke, surely. I am absolutely fuming that someone can use this as their defence and be cleared. What is wrong with the judge?

The news story is here

He got off? Why am I not surprised? And yy to examining the juries finances.

jezebel.com/man-who-claimed-he-fell-and-penetrated-teen-is-cleared-1748294505

And?

That is anther article that adds nothing, except an outraged opinion. We are all outraged that, on the face of it, there has been a weird and abominable miscarriage of justice.

But it still holds that common sense suggests that there is a lot more to this than that article, and the many others, have printed.

It won't be the first time that a legal case has been brought, MN and many other social media sites have got enraged and shouty, and later information has shown that they all jumped the gun.

And a certain amount of the evidence given wasn't given in open court. Which makes me incredibly suspicious.

unless you were on the jury, you have no idea of the full facts of the case.

what has been reported seems unbelievable but i doubt we have the full story. the jury decided in 30 minutes which suggests no doubt

MrsP, not trying to be combative but why is your first reaction to be suspicious?

Mine was to assume that there is something else going on and that the evidence given without a jury was deemed, by the judge, to be necessary. It would have to stand up to a review, it is such an unusual occurrence he would have to have some good grounds on which to have allowed it. He would know that a review is likely, especially given the media hype during the trial.

That and the jury came back very quickly with a decision that seems to defy logic, if the meeja are correct. As Judge Judy says "If a thing doesn't seem to make sense that is because it is not right" and in this case it makes more sense that it is not right to us because we do not have all the relevant information.

'I had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards and it wasn't the evidence that was so upsetting - though it wasn't nice - it was the attitudes of my fellow jurors. It was a really horrible eye-opener for me about how some people think and it still makes me upset to think about it.'

KathyBeale, I can only imagine. Some people have some truly disgusting opinions about women.

It's not actually my first reaction. This story has been in the Feminist Chat section on here for quite a while. My first reaction was, "well he'll be laughed out of Court with that story". Then he wasn't. And not only wasn't he but I can't assess what happened because the Judge decided to take the relatively unusual line of hearing 20 minutes of testimony in private. So, unlike the vast majority of cases, I can't make up my own mind based on reporting. Suspicious...

Plus he's incredibly rich.

Add to that the fact that it is unbelievably hard to get a rape conviction in any case, angry and suspicious. But mainly angry.

Apologies for having missed the other threads on this. Also didn't take enough time to see that this was the decision of a jury. Blood boiling and all that.

I'm not buying that there was necessarily other information involved which we aren't privy to. The whole thing stinks. I am sure that's the case in other trials where the press aren't great at covering the facts or making a meal out of a small selection of them but in this case the man isn't saying 'we had sexually contact, it was consensual,' he has clearly lied. Seriously, do you sleep in a position where if a passing man fell over, his penis would enter your vagina? No, I didn't think so.

I don't trust the courts when it comes to prosecuting rapes. I am dismayed that so many people do. We have a very long way to go. Have a look at the long running thread in the 'In the news' section on sexual abuse by establishment figures and their friends and I'm sure you might change your mind about whether this sort of thing relates to the establishment. I think it does.

Sorry OP but it's a fact that there was 20 mins of private unreported testimony. It seems fair to assume that something in that drove the quickly unanimous verdict.

Is there nothing in the judges summing up that hints at it?

I really struggle to believe that he successfully got off with the defence that she pulled him onto her & he somehow penetrated her by accident. There must be more to it. Allowing the private testimony is the problem here, if whatever is said was what swayed it that needs to be known. I think this is a public interest issue as the message from the verdict otherwise is terribly dangerous and will lead rapists to think they can get away with it with ridiculous excuses.

How long does it take for summations to become available?

Until I have read that I am holding onto my logic!

I have logic too. My critical analysis tells me that most rapists aren't prosecuted. And most women aren't liars. Ergo, the system doesn't work in rape cases.

Erm... should I have written that as my logic, so you would know I wasn't expecting it to be yours?

I wholly agree that most rapists aren't prosecuted. And most women aren't liars. Ergo, the system doesn't work in rape cases. however, when I don't know the whys and wherefors of a case I choose not to jump to a judgement. I prefer to wait for more information - which there must be, in this case, for the reason I gave, that are my logic.

I did say I wasn't trying to be combative!

It's not you Blanche. I'm just tired of giving people the benefit of my doubt when they seem to get the benefit of everyone else's so easily. Meanwhile that poor victim...

No problem. It is a truly weird case and I hope there is a better explanation that "He was rich", I really hope for that!

I don't think anyone's saying there was necessarily other information involved OP, just that it's definitely a possibility and you shouldn't be ruling out on the say so of that fucking rag. Like mrsterry I don't trust the system to adequately prosecute rapists. I also don't trust the Daily Mail.

If there was other information available and it was highly pertinent, then it should be available to the public. Otherwise speculation will run rife.
And the facts that I can see, is that a man put his semen into a woman that didn't want it there. And this man has lots of money. Which thereby means that he got away with doing so.

If there was other information available and it was highly pertinent, then it should be available to the public. Why? To satisfy our prurient curiosity? There is often information available to judges that 'the public' never hear, for many different reasons.

Otherwise speculation will run rife. Which has nothing to do with the law.

Unless, of course, you wish to live in an ever more Jeremy Kyle world, other people's strife being the joyful lubricant to your hum drum life.

As a lawyer I can't help but think there was an evidential problem or something quite serious to have this result. It won't be what the papers want to hear. It could possibly be that the victim didn't want to give evidence or something like that.

The jury reached their decision in 30 minutes. Something telling is missing from the reports.

And you have to remember it is for the prosecution to prove guilt and the jury must reach the standard that the defendant beyond all reasonable doubt. It doesn't matter what his defence was if the prosecution had no witness.

Sorry, that the defendant is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

I did wonder that too kirinm. It's possible even that the victim never actually made any complaint, like in the Rapist Ched Evans scenario, but unlike the victim there didn't actually want a case to be brought for whatever reason and didn't give evidence either. I understand the arguments about judges hearing things in private, but equally there can be very good reasons for that and it's possible that things would've been worse for the victim if this hadn't been done. And yes people will speculate, and one way of solving that would be for judges never to hear anything in private. But equally those who choose to do so while they clearly don't know anything like all the facts need to take some responsibility for that.