To wonder how we determine if a rape accusation is false?

[FlinchGirl]

It seems just about everyone I talk to about this "knows" someone who was definitely falsely accused whilst their accuser apparently got away scott free.

But how do we determine whether an accusation is false?

A claim being withdrawn or charges being dropped or a not guilty verdict being reached does not mean the accusation were false, surely? But those are always the responses I get when I ask how they know the accusations were false. Occasionally the accuser apparently admitted they made it up but then when you probe further it becomes apparent that there is no evidence such a confession took place; it is just what people perceived to have happened and is now being repeated as fact.

I can't say I blame women in being reluctant to report rape

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

I have heard a police officer say that as well lottie

[TabascoToastie]

There are an awful lot of people who hate women, and refuse to admit sexual violence against women is a real problem. Every single time a rape or sexual abuse claim comes to light, a tidal wave of defence and arguments comes crashing down. A guy at my hobbyist group was busted with several thousand child porn images of the most serious kind (showing rape and "torture") and pled guilty. Still half our group defended him and supported him.

Any time there is a rape or sex abuse claim in the news, even if there are no details at all, you'll still see a flood of people defending it. I guarantee if you posted a news story on Twitter that literally just said "Woman accuses man of rape" - NO details at all, you'd get a hundred replies from randoms going "well she's probably making it up." An awful lot of people are just wired to automatically disbelief and debunk ANY sex assault claim.

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest that some police are rape-deniers, and I consider "rape-denial" to be on a par with "holocaust-denial."

[lottieandmia]

Why do some people in the police have this opinion? I know sooooo many women who have been victims of sexual violence and haven't reported it to anyone. It's no wonder they don't really isn't it?

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

Dunno lottie

At the time it was said i didnt really have the arguments or words to counter it

I would certainly be able to at least query the statement now,

[lottieandmia]

Well I did challenge my friend about it at the time. Her 'proof' that it was untrue in one particular case was that the person the allegations had been made against showed the police his phone where the woman had texted him sex related texts. I said well that doesn't prove he didn't rape her does it? Or didn't force her to do something that she said no to.

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

This was a couple of years ago

And a relative which didnt help

Still better armed now i have been on mumsnet for a while

[lottieandmia]

I don't get it at all though because you might as well say that rape can't occur within a marriage which is the kind of thing you find in the manifestos of far right wing political parties

[ShatnersWig]

I know of a case of false accusation. It was going to go to court when, very very fortunately, CCTV was found to prove the accused was totally innocent. As in totally and utterly without a shadow of a doubt.

What would have happened had it gone to court and that CCTV evidence not been found rather frightens me. But with any "they said/they said" crime, it's a very difficult situation.

[auntyhiro]

Graphista

You are clearly lying when you say ''I have never in real life or read about a genuine case of false accusation''

because I linked to a woman who did it multiple times

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

auntie

So no 'havent read the whole thread'

No 'oops missed a post'

No 'oops missed the link'

Just graphista is lying

Hate to break it to you but i didnt look at the link either

[TabascoToastie]

Just because an accusation is labelled as false doesn't mean it was a lie. Most "false accusations" are:
Women who were genuinely raped but don't know who by, and the wrong person was identified, sometimes by police leading/incompetence.
Women who were raped and named the wrong person out of fear of the real perp (common in incest rapes and child rapes).
Women who were raped but were forced to retract.
Women who believe they were raped but couldn't prove the sex wasn't consensual.
Due to mental illness.

The number of women who are just sitting at home and decide "Hey I know, I'll ring 999 and pretend I was raped!" is incredibly tiny.

I can remember one where her father caught them in an embarrassing situation, she was frightened of her father and cried rape. He called the police, if dad left the room she said it wasn't rape, if dad walked back in she said it was. Officers ended up rather exasperated with this family's Jeremy Kyle moment.

Let me get this straight. An adult woman (evidently; if she was a minor it would have been statutory rape) is so terrorised by her father's unnatural interest/control over her sex life - a very disturbing thing for a father to do to an adult daughter - that she would accuse her own partner of a serious crime out of fear and desperation, and all you can do is mock her for being like a "Jeremy Kyle" guest? Not talk to her? Not offer counselling? Not separate her from the father she was so terrified of? Not investigate the strong possibility her father was abusing her?

[TabascoToastie]

Please look at StewieGMum fantastic post from just two pages ago, stats from the FBI breaking down "false rape reports."

Especially this:
"Rape accusations where the police didn't even bother to investigate. These make up the majority of the 8%."

And this:
"An FBI agent made a speech stating that more men fake their own deaths for insurance scams that women make false rape accusations."

[OlennasWimple]

I think men (inlcuding police officers) discount incidents as being rape, because if that was rape then the thing that they have done in the past / know their mate has done / saw on a Youtube video / heard about in the pub is also rape, and that's too much of an uncomfortable truth...

[brasty]

Yes Catharine MacKinnon has said she has interviewed rapists in prison who are outraged that they were in prison for what most men do anyway. And that is often true. Lots of men have forced women to have sex they did not want, although they would reject the idea that they had raped her.

[OlennasWimple]

Oh, brasty - I didn't know that, it was just a hunch of mine!

Just done some quick googling, and this quote from her is very relevant to this thread:

Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened... It isn't just a miscarriage of justice; they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do most of the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught. That view is nonremorseful and not rehabilitative. It may also be true. It seems to me we have here a convergence between the rapist's view of what he has done and the victim's perspective on what was done to her. That is, for both, their ordinary experiences of heterosexual intercourse and the act of rape have something in common. Now this gets us into intense trouble. because that's exactly how judges and juries see it who refuse to convict men accused of rape. A rape victim has to prove that it was not intercourse. She has to show that there was force and she resisted, because if there was sex, consent is inferred. Finders of fact look for "more force than usual during the preliminaries." Rape is defined by distinction from intercourse—not nonviolence, intercourse. They ask, does this even look more like fucking or like rape? But what is their standard for sex, and is this question asked from the woman's point of view? The level of force is not adjudicated at her point of violation; it is adjudicated at the standard of the normal level of force. Who sets this standard?"
"Sex and Violence: A Perspective" (1981), p. 88

[Tangfastics]

Well, I'm afraid I haven't read the whole thread yet but I would like to say, as a rape victim who did report it, the CID fucking amazing, it was the CPS who let me down.

[QueenoftheAndals]

Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened.

Yes, and the rapist Ched Evans even refused to take a class on consent because he thought he'd done nothing wrong. Vile man.

[grannytomine]

Olennas, that might be true of some men, even many men but it is rather a sweeping generalisation to say men as if all men think that. I have definitely worked with CID officers who thought like that but many more who didn't, you know men with wives, daughters, sisters and mothers who actually don't like the idea of men going round raping women.

[brasty]

The point is that many men rape, but would not call it rape. They would call it sex. So when some men protest they are not rapists when they are, they think they are telling the truth and the woman is lying.

[OlennasWimple]

Exactly, brasty

[Graphista]

A didn't read the link

B was referencing experience before this thread

C as pps have said even false allegations are far more nuanced than just 'she lied'

Eg The cctv case referred to - not unusual for rape victims to get times/dates confused due to trauma/shock was that possibility investigated?

Also as has been said several times there are major issues regarding perception of what constitutes rape - both men and women are guilty of this, as I think I commented earlier there are several threads running on the subject at the moment just on here (I also comment on other forums) some of the appalling attitudes from other women is truly shocking.

That victims are to blame if

They are drunk/high/medicated
Skimpily dressed
Flirt/were friendly with their rapist at ANY TIME prior to the rape
Lied about age (12 year old victim)
Walking home in dark/took a shortcut
Haven't had sex with partner for a long time (because men NEED sex don'cha know )

These are all recent (last few weeks) comments I have read made by mners, judges, media...

No bloody wonder rape victims don't bother reporting!

To pp who said cid were great cps let them down - yes my brother frequently feels that cps aren't interested unless they can pretty much guarantee a conviction which is unlikely in any but 'stranger dragged victim down alley at knife point' type rapes.

[auntyhiro]

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer

Nope. Noone who of normal cognitive functioning can reach adulthood without hearing at least one case. There are a couple every month in the newspapers and if you are including america because quite a lot of people seem keen to cite stats from there then there a lot more

Anyone so passionate about this topic will be aware that the innocence project that is committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing and to reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice and the number one type of crime men, mostly (70%) non white are imprisoned for... I think you can guess

Anyone who claims to discuss the matter with a sibling in the police force and to never have encountered one is an inveterate liar

[Graphista]

I am NOT A liar please do not call me one!

You don't know me or my family or my experience.

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

Sorry auntie

Short posts cos my machine is playing up

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

I will give you most of your post as in all honesty i dont have a bloody clue