To think some changes to the law on suspect's accused with sexual offences are needed.

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I am a sexual assault survivor.
After the cliff Richard verdict am I wrong to think that people should not be named when investigated for sexual offences. Or even when charged. Or even naming the accuser as does happen in some countries abroad if there is a not guilty verdict?

I don't think they should be named. We don't name victims of these crimes because they are considered different, those who are accused shouldn't be named unless there is a genuine reason.

Perhaps you could have a judge rule in exceptional cases where the evidence is overwhelmingly against the accused and publicity will help solve it one way or another.

The consequences of being accused of rape/sexual abuse is not the same as being falsely accused of other crimes. Those allegations will attract vigilante attacks on your personal self, family, home even if they're false and even if they're later proven to be false there will always be those who claim you just got away with it.

It's also the only crime where you can be convicted purely on someones word without any evidence which encourages a certain type of person to make false claims. Given how much I know people to lie and having them lie right in front of me about all sorts of stupid things when I have been with them the whole time, I know more than a few people whom I really wouldn't want their word to be enough to destroy somebodys life.

It's also the only crime where you can be convicted purely on someones word without any evidence

Then why do only 6% of reported rapes result in a conviction?

If someone could really be convicted without any evidence and just solely on one persons word against another then surely the conviction rate would be a lot higher than 6%?

What crap! Of course you need evidence to convict someone of rape, same as any other crime.

I was going to respond to the rest of your post but I can't be bothered tbh. It's just more "but women tell lies and we need to protect the poor men from the evil lying women!" BS. So bloody boring.

It's over 65% conviction of those cases which are brought to court. And yes, a minority of women do lie.

Also Zerena you do realise that if suspects couldn't be named then the already piss poor rape conviction rate would plummet? Or do you just not care?

Rapists tend to be repeat offenders. Naming the suspect will often encourage more victims to come forward which in turn helps secure a conviction. If more than one woman with no connection to each other are saying Fred has raped them then it makes it more likely that a conviction will be secured. There have been several cases where rapists have only been convicted because they were named and more victims came forward.

Again, remember John Worboys? If he was allowed to remain anonymous then chances are he would still be out there raping women.

But of course that doesn't matter because well, they're women and not as important as men .

It's over 65% conviction of those cases which are brought to court.

The key phrase there is "brought to court". As with any other crime, cases don't make it to court unless there is a decent chance of conviction, hence the 65% figure.

However out of all the reported rapes, only 6% result in a conviction.

Again if people really could be convicted with no evidence like you are claiming then surely the overall conviction rate would be a lot higher than 6%?

And yes, a minority of women do lie

So you're admitting yourself here that it's only a minority who lie yet you still think that the accused shouldn't be named .

That just proves that you think that the tiny percentage of men who are falsely accused are more important than the thousands of women who are raped and never see their attacker brought to justice.

Anyone who doubts that we live in a patriarchy society needs to look no further than how we view women's suffering vs mens suffering.

Women's suffering = not that big of a deal.
Men's suffering = VERY important and we must minimize it at all costs. Even if it does means womens suffering is increased because of it.

Granny, because there is a stigma attached to victims of rape which isn't attached to victims of other crime. And often the victims of rape see their reputation, morality, personal life, lifestyle and habits dragged through the mud in a way which the victim of, say a burglary, would never face. It's really important that victims are not put off reporting by having to face that. All too often in rape cases the victim ends up treated as though they are the accused.

Don't you think the accused gets his name dragged through the mud? So many people on here have said that just because someone is acquitted it doesn't mean they are innocent, don't you think that sticks with people? People have also said why should the accused be allowed anonymity when other crimes don't, well why does the accuser get anonymity when victims of other crimes don't?

I think it is far more important to look at everyone's attitudes, I used to work for a large police force, I was involved in cases where rapists where prosecuted for rape of a prostitute. Those women were treated with respect, I only heard one officer make an offensive remark and the DCI involved wiped the floor with him.

Men have died because of malicious allegations, is that was your 18 year old brother/boyfriend/son would you think that was OK?

Zerena you do realise that not all rapes are actually being reported dont't you? And out of those very few actually go to court. The 65% percent come out of those very few cases.
It's not 65% out of all the cases where a woman simply walked in a police station and said she was raped. And you know which cases are the ones that normally don't go to court? The ones with he said she said,so no a woman's word is not enough to even get a man charged with rape,much less get him convicted

ToadsJustFellFromTheSky if what you say is true why is the women given anonymity and the man not?

Each individual is important, sacrificing an innocent man because of what other men do is just as unacceptable as some women having their suffering dismissed because other women have made a false accusation.

Lets prosecute the rapists and the women who make false accusations and protect the innocent.

granny ime if he is acquitted then he doesn't get dragged through the mud.

The general mindset tends to be that he was acquitted so it follows that he must be innocent. There are also people who then assume that because he was acquitted therefore in their minds innocent then it obviously means that he was falsely accused. He will then go on to be a "I know someone who is falsely accused..." story.

why is the women given anonymity and the man not?

That has already been explained to you. I'm not going to explain it again.

granny What are you talking about, looking at peoples attitudes? Of course the police treated those women with respect. They are professionals and that is their job. That's what they should be doing. I'm confused as to what you are getting at.

With respect to "mud sticks", look at how the woman in the Ched Evans case has been treated. She's had to move three times. She's had to change her name. And she's meant to have immunity. Meanwhile, Ched served the sentence handed down by the court and is back playing football with the full backing if his wife and child.
I always hear about these poor guys whose lives will be ruined, but yet to see a concrete example of that.

Men have died because of malicious allegations

A tiny percentage of men have died because of false accusations.

I assure you that far more women have killed themselves because of being raped than men have because they were falsely accused.

How many of those men that died ,died at the hands of other men. How many women killed or attacked an man falsely accused of rape?
How many rapist get off scot free every single fucking day?

Exactly Felascloak!

I don't buy the whole accusations ruins lives thing. I don't doubt that they might ruin lives in a tiny tiny percentage of cases but that pales in comparison to the amount of women who have had their lives ruined because of rape.

Look at Craig Charles. He was accused of rape but then acquitted. Nearly everyone it seems now thinks he was a poor innocent man who was falsely accused and his life has carried on as normal. His life is certainly not ruined.

I have seen a lot of venom aimed at the woman who accused him however - she was a "lying slut", "she should be jailed for ruining that poor man's life", etc.

Could you image if the women in those cases were allowed to be named? I would have serious fears for their safety.

And granny you do realise that if you didn't name the suspect then rape convictions would plummet? Are you seriously okay with more rapists walking free and free to do it again just to protect a minority of men who are falsely accused?

I was talking about men who commit suicide because of false allegations. How does it help a victim if an innocent man's life is ruined?

Are all men collectively guilty, does it matter if we punish the ones who actually committed the crime or is it OK to just punish a man?

Most rapes are by someone known to the victim so why do they need someone else to accuse them first?

No I don't want rapists walking free, I want the guilty ones caught and convicted.

is that was your 18 year old brother/boyfriend/son would you think that was OK?

I've always found the whole "what if it was your son/brother/husband, etc" argument a bit odd tbh.

It is based solely around the idea that if my son/brother/husband was accused of rape then the accusation would obviously be a false one.

Because you know obviously rapists have horns and the word "rapist" tattooed on their forehead. They're certainly not ever someone's son, brother, husband, friend, nephew, father, etc .

The fact is rapists could be anybody. They don't have a huge sign with an arrow pointing towards them saying "rapist", they're normal people like you and me who no doubt have friends, families, jobs...but of course if a family member or friend was accused of rape then obviously the accusation would be a false one because someone I know couldn't possibly do such a thing .

Most rapes are by someone known to the victim so why do they need someone else to accuse them first?

They don't. But a rapist is a rapist. So for example, when an ex girlfriend reads that someone has accused her ex of rape, she might come forward to tell her own story. Her story might corroborate the original accusers, increasing the likelihood of him being convicted and getting justice for her.

It's precisely because of the he said/she said nature of these crimes that it's so important. Because it gives a chance for others to come forward and corroborate the victims story. Without that many cases don't reach court.

Yes I'm sure it's stressful and unpleasant for any innocent men involved. But so is being involved in any crime that you don't commit. Not sure why rape is singled out.

I think the Ben Butler case (not rape) is a really sobering case about what can happen when you buy into some of these myths (all women lie, courts hate men).

I was talking about men who commit suicide because of false allegations

Again that's a tiny percentage.

Women who have been raped have also committed suicide and had their lives ruined.

I can assure you that a lot more women have committed suicide because of being raped than men have because of being falsely accused. A lot more.

False accusations are already rare as it is. Out of that tiny percentage of men who are falsely accused then it will be an even smaller number who commit suicide.

How does it help a victim if an innocent man's life is ruined?

There you go again. It always comes back to the "poor innocent men".

I mean, who cares if thousands of women are raped? Who cares if most of them will never see their attacker brought to justice? Who cares if conviction rates drop because their rapist isn't allowed to be named?

It's the men who are the important ones here and the ones we need to protect

Are all men collectively guilty

No.

Most rapes are by someone known to the victim so why do they need someone else to accuse them first?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.

No I don't want rapists walking free

Except that is exactly what will happen if you the suspect gets anonymity. Do you not realise that?

all your chat about false allegation boils down to fundamentally believing that women lie.

FFS. Which part of 'we don't know' don't you understand? I am not the person here who thinks truth can be established by looking in someone's pants and seeing which genatalis they have. We simply don't know.

There are a lot of conflicting studies which are cherry picked for highlighting according to what the person doing the highlighting wants to present. These go from a 2% figure right up to 41%. They are all so different because there is absolutely no way that researchers can definitively tell who is telling the truth so they use different methodologies to estimate the % of false allegations. And they are all fallible.

The 2% figure is just an anecdote of something a judge may or may not have said, and the 41% figure is poor as it is based only on withdrawn allegations which is a bad indicator as it's likely that true allegations would be withdrawn too.

We simply do not know. It's not saying that women lie to say that you shouldn't convict or make assumptions of guilt on those whose guilt cannot be proved. It's just a basic principle of justice.

Actually, if you look really hard for something and are unable to find it, that does rather strongly suggest that it does not exist. It is, in real life, literally impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.

So when evaluating these things properly (ie in a scientific way), you look at the balance of evidence. If there is no evidence at all that there is a teacup in orbit around the Earth then I'm pretty confident that there isn't a teacup in orbit around the Earth.

That's actually rather a meaningless discussion as it's not comparing like for like. Comparing a search for a physical object which can definitively said to be there or not there to a nebulous concept like 'consent' which only exists or doesn't exist for a split second and is only witnessed by two people and does not hang around for anybody else to check it's existence, is utterly ridiculous as there is no real comparison.

Science is a very, very poor suggestion of a methodology for looking at this issue. A far better one is history, where there are often no real absolutes and reliable evidence of events is scant or absent and that vacuum is filled with theories or opinions which can never be truly definitive.

For example: Henry the VIII divorce of Catherine of Aragon was based on his claim she had sex with his brother Arthur, and consummated her marriage to him. The truth of that will never be known. Only Catherine and Arthur would ever truly know. And you will get historians on either side equally vehemently claiming that they did or didn't have sex. But in the absence of definitive evidence we will never know.

The teacup analogy also fails in itself because there is actually a lot of evidence - witness evidence. Hundreds of thousands of people have spent hundreds of years searching and cataloging the sky without reporting or cataloging a teacup in orbit. The odds that they all missed it or are deliberately denying are tiny, so it can quite reasonably be assumed it doesn't exist.

This doesn't apply at all to determining the truth of rape allegations, because it is something which could only possibly have been witnessed over a few seconds by only 2 people (often).

Actually, if you look really hard for something and are unable to find it, that does rather strongly suggest that it does not exist. It is, in real life, literally impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.

I'm so stunned by that I don't quite know what to say. Because if it were true we simply wouldn't be having this conversation because rape convictions would be no issue because the evidence of rape would be there if people simply looked hard enough for it. And we all know that is simply not the case. It's the argument MRA use to say allegations are untrue: 'Where are her bruises', 'Where are the signs of a struggle? There is no evidence'.

And exactly the difficulty of finding enough evidence to secure convictions is the same difficulty researchers have when determining if allegations are false. The evidence just isn't there and it's impossible to know.

Anyway, long post. But it basically boils down to the fact that absolutely nobody can possibly accurately determine either the number of wrongful acquittals or false allegations. And anybody who claims they can is either lying or has a very poor understanding of how research or statistics work.

to a nebulous concept like 'consent' which only exists or doesn't exist for a split second
I am really losing patience with the tone on MN at the moment about consent.

It isn't a nebulous concept. Either a woman consents to sex (not rape) or she doesn't (rape). What is nebulous about that?

It also doesn't only last for a split second. After the fact, either she did consent or she didn't. It's not a changeable fact.

You seem to be starting to talk about the withdrawal of consent after sex. This is a rape myth. Women dont regret sex and pretend they didn't consent. It's just rape apologism.

It isn't a nebulous concept. Either a woman consents to sex (not rape) or she doesn't (rape). What is nebulous about that?. It's nebulous because it's formless. Which is a direct contrast to your analogy of the physical object of a teacup. Which is what was being discussed. It's spoken words which leave no evidence of their existence (normally) other than the memory in the minds of the people who did (or didn't) hear it.

It also doesn't only last for a split second. After the fact, either she did consent or she didn't. It's not a changeable fact.

The moment it is given does only last a split second. And unless recorded or witnessed it is almost impossible to determine what happened in that second. And if you can't determine what happened in that split second what happens afterwards is also a moot point because you cannot prove whether or not consent was given beforehand. It's not an issue of what consent does or doesn't mean, it's the issue of whether or not it did or didn't exist is so difficult to prove in the first place. And you can't extrapolate anything about how long consent lasts or doesn't if you can't prove whether or not it existed in the first place.

I'm not talking about withdrawal of consent. Just the fact that if the issue of consent can or cannot be disproven then there is no way of knowing whether it is a case of rape or false allegation. And neither should be assumed. Are you suggesting that in the case of sex offences we get rid of the concept of innocent until proven guilty and move to guilty until proven innocent? You appear to be suggesting that.

Women dont regret sex and pretend they didn't consent.

Again, opinion presented as fact. Can you source this from anywhere reliable (not really a serious question because we both know you can't).

See this is the bloody problem. I'm in favour of the continued identification of offenders as it can bring forward so much useful evidence which secures conviction.

But as long as there are well meaning idiots who think they're being helpful sloganeering and presenting dubious 'facts' and 'statistics' and insisting there's no smoke without fire: then people who want to scrap identification are going to have a hugely powerful argument that identification should be scrapped.

If it is, they will have no one to blame but themselves.