Having to give police 24 hours notice before sex is not having less freedom than if you were in prison.....

[Felascloak]

This man has a sexual risk order in place which says he must notify police 24 hours before he intends to have sex.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-36481127

He likens this to "putting and end to his life" and says he had more freedom in prison. This baffles me unless he was having lots of gay sex in prison.

AIBU to think he's being melodramatic in his descriptions and overly focussed on the importance of sex in his life? He can still have sex and there don't appear to be other restrictions.

Reality, sorry. Bloody phone.

Yeah I was a bit at that. Helped his barrister normalise beating a woman who didn't want sex with him presumably. Ugh.

I don't think these are draconian restrictions. No one is stopping him having sex. It's not suggested the police will even speak to any women he notifies them about. It means he needs to get consent.

I actually don't see it as too different to the police being able to disclose allegations of DV to women if they ask about their partner.

His attitude stinks of entitlement.

A breach of these orders also makes them subject to the registration requirements of the sexual offences act.

This isn't a new order, just an old order under a new name and have been used successfully for some time to protect the public where there is evidence of risky behaviour but insufficient evidence for criminal conviction.

The jury also heard evidence from a doctor with whom he had discussed his past.

Ah, the fiction of privileged communications ... not in the UK.

I haven't looked into these measures in detail but I suspect there will be decent safeguards in terms of the reasons when one of these can be issued.

It's a truism that very few rapes get convicted. I didn't even bother reporting when I was raped.

This is a balanced safeguard which ensures a conviction if he is reported for rape again.
The reality is that if he only has consensual sex the police will never know.

Do the police contact the woman in each case and make sure she has agreed to have sex with him in 24hours time? I don't get how anyone would ever agree to have anything to do with him.

I struggle with some of the attitudes on here tbh. The man has been found not guilty. That should mean something! This is very intrusive and completely undermines our Justice system.

There seems to be an attitude on here that men are all inherently bad and they are less than women. The knee jerk reaction is to believe they are guilty until proven innocent and even then keep an eye on them. I personally think that is an appalling attitude and one which is potentially dangerous. ANY 'separation' between humanity is a bad thing as it leads to the thought that some people are worth more than others. I don't want my daughter growing up believing that men are less than women any more than I want her thinking women are inferior; we are all equal and are deserving of exactly the same respect.

I'm sure the courts have their reasons but it does not sit well with me. Innocent should mean innocent.

I don't see how this will work really.

It's not hard to find someone's dob and address. So he can go to the police and say officer I plan to have sex with

Jane doe
26/06/1978
45 fake street
Sex land
Sx5 9ka

Doesn't mean she's actually consented does it anyway unless the police are going to spend their time contacting each women within that 24hour window. Which if they did seems like a waste of tax payers money and a huge invasion of privacy for both the man and possible sexual partner.

Would any women here really want to be questioned about their possible want to have sex with someone?

I would want a sexual predator to find it harder to rape me after he was known to the authorities.

The man has been found not guilty. That should mean something!

It means he's not in prison.

I think this type of Order is a good thing.

This man is very clearly a risk to women, otherwise they wouldn't have done it. How many men who have sexually assaulted someone and got away with it have an order like this placed on them? Very few. For this man to have had one granted there must be a very clear reason.

For that reason, I think this is necessary to keep women safe.

I remember this being in the news when it happened, think I started a thread on it.

Lurking Ah, the fiction of privileged communications ... not in the UK.

Could you expand on that please? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

I think Rainbunny has made a good point - about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. My own somewhat odd brushes with law and order have made me think about the potential for gross unfairness in the legal system, in particular around what is taken to court and what is not, and the various non-court options (sorry don't know the right term!) There's also seriously dodgy ground/inconsistency about what the CPS decides is "worth" prosecuting. I this time of austerity, I worry this will only gets worse as police and courts seek the cheapest, quickest option.

Not sure about the testimony of a psychiatrist either. They can basically argue something either way and then give it a vaguely medical seal of approval.

There seems to be an attitude on here that men are all inherently bad and they are less than women.

I havent seen that.

What a crybaby.

The police, I remind you, consists mostly of men. Same with the whole legal system.

If they think there's good reason to place those restrictions on a man, then we can be 99% sure he did actually rape, and everyone knows, and they just can't prove it.

Would any women here really want to be questioned about their possible want to have sex with someone?

Yes. I would of course promptly tell them that no, I do not want to have sex with him.
But I'd appreciate the information.

And I don't think they actually think he'll tell them. I think they just hope that he'll stick to consensual sex, as anything else could land him in prison, regardless of whether they can prove the rape or not.

I have to second Derek's comment. If he was acquitted. Strictly speaking they're dictating to an innocent man about when he can have sex.. I'm far from stupid, but I don't understand

Aye For this man to have had one granted there must be a very clear reason.

Ok - so, what is it? And how to they decide he is guilty enough of something to warrant this, in a fair way? Because in theory that's what the court is supposed to do, yet they havent found him guilty of rape. Was he guilty of something else perhaps?

I'm not arguing that they made the wrong decision in this instance, more how can we be sure the process is fair so that they can't just frame someone who's innocent?

Innocent should mean innocent. Actually it's 'not guilty'; beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a reason Courts don't find people innocent.

Criminal courts have a pretty high standard of proof. Which means that the system is based on the idea that guilty people WILL go free. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer". Blackstone's ratio, a cornerstone of criminal law. All well and good.

But we are now at the point that for every 3 rapes, 997 go entirely unpunished. [Canadian stats as I don't know the UK ones but I would imagine they are similar]. Most aren't reported, then most of them aren't prosecuted, then lots of not guilty verdicts.

Rape has a very high recidivism rate; most sexual offences do. So offenders are very likely to not see a Court and then go out and rape again and again.

3 rapes with a guilty verdict, 997 go entirely unpunished

Strictly speaking they're dictating to an innocent man about when he can have sex.. I'm far from stupid, but I don't understand

No they aren't. He can have sex whenever he likes. He needs to tell them the name of his partner is all.

Now she may choose not to have sex with him when she finds out his history. But as a pp says, boo fucking hoo.

Something has to change, and this seems like a very clever idea. Quite frankly for the police to implement this they must have very real concerns when it comes to the safety of women who get involved with him. He clearly likes very passive women he can dominate, and any women who are truly into that probably won't be put off by a police chat. I am not going to be horrified that women are allowed to be forewarned before entering into an intimate situation with him.

3 rapes with a guilty verdict, 997 go entirely unpunished

And this is reported cases I assume?

I'm in my mid forties and through school, college, work and socializing I've known so many women who were raped and didn't report it because they knew it would be very hard to prove, or they didn't want the further violation of an examination and court case. My guess is that for every woman who reports her rape, four or five don't.

I'm fundamentally uneasy at the idea being articulated in places on this thread that someone who was acquitted in court should essentially stand in place for all the rapists who haven't been brought to justice. "Well, we couldn't catch them but this one will do. He's probably guilty of doing something wrong anyway, regardless of what the court said."

Rape is the most disgusting crime, but we shouldn't start dismantling the founding principle of our justice system as a cop-out way of compensating for society's failings in adequately trying and convicting rapists.

He's not "innocent".

They couldn't prove him guilty, so he is not guilty.

That doesn't mean he didn't do it.

He's not standing in for anyone.

Based entirely on the particulars of his own case, it has been decided to impose an order.

I think given the epidemic rates of rape and sexual assault in this country, imposing restrictions like this on dangerous men is reasonable.

He's not standing in place of a guilty person... It is overwhelmingly more likely that he IS a guilty person. Just one that was found not guilty.

I found the Independent's stats. 95000 rapes a year in the UK. 15670 recorded by Police. 2910 go to Court. 1070 convictions. Unless you believe that 14600 women falsely report rapes to the Police every year there are a massive number of rapists going free.

Now you may in fact believe that Blackstone's formula is immutable and more important than the people suffering those 93930 unconvicted rapes a year. But let's not discount that this is the case. And that we are throwing the safety and bodily integrity of women and children (mainly) under the bus to achieve that standard. Women suffer the consequences of this principle in the case of sexual assault and rape trials so can we not discount their pain entirely?