To think Cliff Richard and co should stop their awful campaign?

[PinkyOfPie]

news.sky.com/story/sir-cliff-urged-to-drop-campaign-for-anonymity-for-sex-offence-suspects-10620627

In a nutshell Cliff Richard and other well known men have launched a campaign to grant anonymity to accused sexual offenders.

AIBU to think they should FOTTFSOF? Aside from it being a well known fact the other victims come forward when they see their abuser/rapist has been charged, there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest a 'false' accusation of a sex crime impacts a person more than a false accusation of any other crime. Its a horrible rape myth that damages victims.

Also the official stats false accusations for rape and sexual assault (of which around 35 people are convicted a year in the U.K.) are no higher than false accusations any other crime.

So why in gods name would those accused of sexual crimes ever get special treatment?

YABU. I'm strongly FOR what Cliff Richard is standing up for.

A friend was falsely accused of rape. At court the accusers stories had changed 6 times, unanimous decision of not guilty. There wasn't a shred of DNA evidence and a counter claim was actioned against the accuser.

Unfortunately though, as it got to court, my friends photograph was published in the local paper before the court date - it never appeared again to say he was innocent though!!

More recently, someone in the local paper accused of child abuse. However, not currently charged?! How is that allowed to be published?! What if he IS innocent!!

Yanbu. CR makes my skin crawl. I know that's got nothing to do with his argument but I just don't trust him

ByeByeLilSebastian

And people like you are exactly why people need anonimity before being charged. Even though he has not been charged with a crime, you think there's something dodgy about him because you don't like the look of him. This is the problem!

There's going to be another 'Savile Situation' one day.

But I felt that way about him before the allegations.
You can't stop people having an opinion.

Red if there wasn't any evidence that he raped her then why did the CPS decide to take it to court? They only take cases to court if there is a lot of evidence against the accused.

And why are you so sure that the accusation was false? Because he was found not guilty? That doesn't mean the accusations were false. It just means they were unable to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt that he did do it.

Changing her story doesn't mean she was lying either. It just means that she is human and doesn't have a picture perfect memory which means that she may have recalled events differently/incorrectly as time went on.

I'm not saying the man did it btw. I'm just baffled as to why he's innocent until proven guilty but she isn't. She's just automatically guilty of making the whole thing up by default.

Why does innocent until proven guilty only work one way?

And why do so many people know people they know for sure were falsely accused? Despite the stats clearly stating that false accusations of rape are no higher than false accusations of other crime.

Was the woman in that case convicted Red? If not then how do you know for sure she made the whole thing up?

My dh was falsly accused of sexual assault. He didn't do it. He never got charged, there was evidence to prove it never happened. However the girl who accused him told everyone what she was accusing him of. Due to all of this gossip in a small community my dh ended up moving jobs and we are in the process of trying to move to a new area as many people belive the no smoke without fire. This same girl has since accused 2 men of rape, I struggle to believe her and once again she is talking about it to anyone that will listen. Cases like this are rare but they ruin lives so I agree on some points. If a person hasn't been charged then why should they be named as a rapist.

i'm not so sure about this. The difficulty is that for a cliff richard the stigma can hang around, but there are people on botg sides. For a relatively anonymous person a false accusation will give them public presence only on that one issue, and the internet being what it is, one article saying 'accused of' will hang around longer than any late quiet dropping of a case.

Its easy to get rabid about protection, but having seen employers make horrible inferences about people just to try to fire them, i know that tactical accusations (of the no smoke without fire type) are made all the time. 'paedophile' is the new nuclear accusation for 'weirdo' or 'new person we dont know who us male' even schoolkids throw it around, so its risky to autobelieve.

On the other hand, when there are genuine cases where there is danger, then publicity is useful. Its how you decide when its real..after the result seems safest but even then there are distinctions eg a picture of a minor in a wealth of 'normal' porn would still carry the charge 'making and distributing images involving children' even if the image is of a 17year old acting and being explained as a 21 year old, with the 'defence being that you were unaware.

This could devastate a life, family, children,grandchildren, and ruin a family financially, just because of people's tendancy to catastrophise, so its extremely difficult to know what to do when accusations are 'possibly has looked at porn'

I think this should be distinct from accusations of actual harm.

I also think Sir Cliff should fuck off.

But I do think that the police were rather silly allowing a news team etc to film then smashing into the Richard Mansion at daft o'clock in the morning.

That was out of order.

Plus - I think names are only realised when there are charges, aren't they. I don't think anonymity should be granted.

False accusations are far, far rarer than men who commit sexual offences against women and children not being brought to justice. I'm far more concerned with the latter.

Perhaps the "girl" in question cricket really was raped twice by both men.

And why does talking about it suddenly mean she's lying? Why shouldn't women talk about being raped? Or should they just stfu and be ashamed that it happened?

Funny that the stats clearly state that false accusations are rare and most rapes are actually go unreported yet numerous people on this thread seem to know someone who was falsely accused....

you do know if you are accused of rape and or charged or went to court but found not guilty you can no longer work with children vunreable people etc and your reputation is ruined just bloody look on this board about not guilty does not mean innocent etc just another rapist got off etc

I had the displeaurse of being involved in a case of a man being accused of rape because at that time if a sexual crime happened in a victims house they got given money to decorate / provide more secruty in there homes and she had totally lied about the whole damn thing and was actully charged and found guilty of perverting the course of justice but only got a suspended sentence

While sadly the victim took his own life because he was a teacher his career was ruined he lost his house because while being investigated for rape you are automatically suspended with no pay pending outcome and family (wife left him because she was the mind of no smoke without fire )

And even though she was "punished" for lying people still belive shes a victim and it really boils my piss that his reputation was permentaly ruined even after his death.

And sadly thats why we belive you campaign is so bloody dangerous as its a double edged sword while its great that it supports victims in promotes the belief that even found not guilty = just nother rapest got off etc which in turn means that the accused is punished even if they are found innocent in the eyes of the law (which should be innocent enough for everyone else and found not guilty should mean exactly that)

Because at the moment if you are accused of rape you whole life is turned upside down permentaly as even if your found not guilty your reputation is ruined and you are barred from most careers (if your name was published in a newspapper) would any of you truly employ someone who was named as someone accused of rape? (thought not) so in effect the person is being unjustly punished even when proven not guilty and thusly a innocent person which is a slippery slope

(ps sorry about spelling in this post no spell checker on my ipad and i am dyslixica)

Lords Bramall and Brittan might disagree with the OP as well!

Our justice system works on the premis that EVERYONE is innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, certain crimes carry the stigma of 'he must be guilty, otherwise why would the police be investigating' . Anonymity makes sense for ALL parties for these crimes, until at least the case goes to court.

Do some of you really believe that CR is guilty just because the raid on his place was filmed by the BBC? According to our justice system he is INNOCENT. Just because he is a 'famous' person doesn't make him either more or less guilty than anyone else. Just because the police are investigating, doesn't make him guilty either. For our justice system to work, we have to respect that. Otherwise we cannot expect the rest of it to work fairly for us either.

She wasn't the 'accuser', Red. The prosecution were. She was a witness and a victim.

Victims of rape get no support from the courts (or very little). They have very little interaction with the prosecution. They are in there by themselves. Some just have no idea what to expect. There is no preparation for them. Court will invariably be a frightening, intimidating adversarial place. Under those circumstances they are interrogated by the prosecution, made to doubt themselves, made to doubt what happened. They are forced to articulate something that was likely to be incredibly painful and they've probably tried to forget. Added to all that they have to describe what happened in what has been defined by society as an intimate act. They won't be used to doing that. They may be embarrassed or horrified. They most certainly will be scared.

On the other hand those standing accused can be coached by their defence team and be far more prepared to expect certain questions and project a certain demeanour.

It isn't a level playing field.

I cannot understand the focus on the handful of falsely accused here. Latest figures (An overview of sexual offending in England and Wales) indicate that only 15% of rape or sexual assaults get reported to the police and only 6% of that 15% lead to conviction. That seems much more worrying to me. Same report shows that it's now 1 in 5 women (aged 16-59) has experienced sexual violence since the age of 16. 1 in 5.

With figures like these, anything that makes it harder for women to report (and anonymity for the perpetrator certainly would) is to be avoided.

She is a girl she is 19. Like I said I struggle to believe her after everything she put us through. She might be telling the truth and if that is the case then I hope they go to prison. Btw my husband was falsly accused there was evidence to prove it. He had fired her, then she went to the police saying she was assaulted. There was cctv footage to prove they had never been alone. But obviously he's a man so he must of done it and we deserve the abuse from her friends, the young men hanging round our street cause she tells everyone my dh is some sort of sexual predator. We are selling our house and moving because of her lies so I'm sorry if I struggle with believing her.

I was sexually assaulted at work last year.

And yes, I told people about it and talked about it because why shouldn't I? Would you rather I kept quiet and be ashamed about it?

I also reported it to the police. My story changed a couple of times and you know why that is? Because I'm a human and not a robot with a photographic memory who can always recall every single detail. Because I was in bloody shock and scared because I'd just been sexually assaulted in a place I should have been safe so my thoughts and words were jumbled.

So yes my story did change a couple of times but I wasn't doing it on purpose and I wasn't making anything up. I was just scared and couldn't get my thoughts straight. That doesn't change the fact he sexually assaulted me.

However according to some people on here because I told people about it and my story changed I must clearly be a liar

Luckily the police were more sympathetic and understood that people who have just gone through a traumatic experience and are in shock aren't always thinking logically and as a result their stories can and do change.

I was also raped five years ago.

I didn't report that but I did tell my parents about it.

However according to some people being both sexually assaulted and raped on two separate occasions is impossible and must mean I'm a liar .

than lambzig you need to coach the general public to treat people accused and found not guilty of crimes as innocent be that a rapist (not going to happen ever) a supected child abuser (ditto) and people able to sue companies /employers if they dont employ someone because they have been accused of one of the hidious crimes just look at the number of people that would complain to a football club if they employ Chad evans (while he is a dick on so many levels) we shoudl not have the power to stop him being employed

Because people will not employ people if they have been accused of rape or child abuse (if the company knows about it via google search in papers / news etc)

So in reality until the general public is made to belive innocent until proven guilty to avoid peoples lives forever tarnished should be provided with new identies or aninimioty until found guilty as with the age of sociel media suspected rapists will be forever branded as such forever more

I'm sorry it happened to you I truly am but please understand that when someone you love has been falsly accused it is horrible. We have had to call the police because of threats because of what she has said.
I'm going to leave this thread now because I can't stand having to defend my dh again and again. Obviously what happened to us is very very rare I'm not denying that. But we are victime now too and things like this bring back all the memories I suppose.