To think Innocent until proving guilty doesn't exist in this society anymore?

[adventuresinbabysitting]

Kevin Spacey's career is over.

There is no proof! If these things aren't true, where is the justice in that? I just don't get it. By all means go after him and seek justice if he has wronged you in a horrible way.

I know people will disagree, but I think it's wrong to be removing him from films etc yet.

I don’t think innocent until proven guilty was ever a thing anyway

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/12010353/John-Leslie-questioned-over-allegations-of-sex-assault-on-22-year-old-woman.html

Google sure does come up with some interesting results... JL has (as far as I can ascertain) been accused of sexual assault or rape 4 times. Also snorting cocaine and threesomes on tape can't have exactly helped his career. But what people remember is that he was accused by UJ and lost everything. That isn't the truth. But we want to blame women. So we do.

No one stood up to defend John Leslie, because he was a well known sleaze. I worked at a magazine at the time and one of our journalists personally knew two female journalists who'd been the subject of his attentions. Someone else had a friend at This Morning, and had heard all the stories about him. We also got a letter from a reader about him.

I think it's probably the same for Kevin Spacey. Too many people know that it's true and they ignored it when he was an A-list actor and getting the Old Vic a lot of attention, directing and casting films and plays etc.

I am not excusing sexual assault, but sometimes that isn't exactly what has happened

More often than not that is what happened though.

Can’t stand this notion that women are falsely reporting sexual assault in their droves when it’s actually very rare. And yes I know that’s not what has been said but it’s certainly been implied.

By witch hunt I didn't mean literal interpretation.

I was referring to the frenzy and excitement that can start to build momentum (mainly through the media and social media now, then it was Salem Trials or McCarthyism) about naming names...

I am not saying if he is guilty or innocent, I have no idea, as does no one else. I just think he never stood a chance even if every encounter he had was consensual- it would never be believed now.

I certaily dont think people should be named publically until a guilty verdict is returned.

In the same way I think rape victims should be named if the accused is acquitted.

There weren't any witches in Salem and there were hardly any Communists in Hollywood.

It's always implied that women will line up round the block to report sexual abuse every time someone high profile is accused. I always assume it's because someone else going first has made other victims of the perpetrator feel braver and therefore able to speak up. But far too many people (men and women) use terms like "jumping on the bandwagon" and "attention seeking" and "why leave it this long" which implies they don't believe them and discredits the lot in their eyes.

I have/had a friend who decided that a man she knows who was convicted of raping his partner definitely didn't do it and she's lying. Because "he's so nice to me has never made me feel uneasy and has certainly never attacked me" uh huh. Wont accept that her analysis isn't a great basis to decide if someone is guilty or not

The justice system doesn't always deliver actual justice.

Ah, there's the problem. It's not a justice system, nor ever was. It's a legal system.

No way should rape victims be named if the accused is acquitted. Unless we improve the justice system enough that much fewer rapists walk free.

Somebody being acquitted doesn't mean that the person accusing somebody of rape is lying.

That's the point to an extent isn't it?

Ergo not every powerful man is a sexual predator.

Not every person who accused sexual assault is telling the truth.

Back to my original point, I just feel that is he IS INNOCENT then his professional life is ruined and the stress will be horrific.

And yes, so is the victims.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

I found it very strange that the mother of the 18 year old who accuses him had to state he was straight.

How does she know that for sure? Does that make it worse? So if an older woman had sexually assaulted him it would be okay?

Fair point lurking but my reasons stay the same. The conviction rate for things such as rape is very very low. And that can't solely be because the person doing the accusing is lying.

And ffs just because a defendant is found not guilty doesn't mean the person accusing them is lying it means they have been found not guilty.

In the same way I think rape victims should be named if the accused is acquitted.

This can’t be a serious suggestion can it? You do realise that just because someone is found not guilty it doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t do it. Just that there wasn’t enough evidence in a court of law to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Rape victims go through enough without having their name made public just because their attacker fell through the cracks in the system.

The legal system is set up so that guilty men will go free to defend against the innocent going down. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation All well and good. I'd rather not be sent to prison while innocent, thanks.

The problem is that the very very low convictions rates and lack of will to deal with sexual offending means that people are under the impression it's rare. It's not rare, it's incredibly common. A LOT of men are sex offenders. Very few women, men and children falsely accuse people. No more than for any other crime.

Do you spend your time worrying about people accused of burglary, arson and GBH? I bet you don't. Because although those crimes have a similar rate of false reports, we only hear about the 'false' reports of rape and sex offending.

If he has sexually assaulted people, he deserves the stress and for his professional life to be ruined - so whilst the two are not ‘mutually exclusive’ as you say, the victim of a sexual assault does not deserve the stress or to have their life ruined, but the perpetrator has made a deliberate choice to behave inappropriately and assault their victim, so I will not weep for the effects on their life.

But that is because there is no ambiguity if you set fire to a house. You did that. Simple.

If you are in the closet and feel deep shame and have not accepted your sexuality or act out of character while using alcohol or drugs - and I know most of the time this isn't the case - but you can feel confused about why you did this, and change the version of events to ease emotional stress.

It's called false memory. It's your brains coping mechanism.

That's rare though. But illustrates the difference between sexual
Assault and those other crimes you listed.

Yes, obviously.

But that doesn't justify the stress/loss of career if he isn't guilty?

There was a very odd incident in London.

Spacey was the Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theatre from 2004 to 2015.

He claimed to have been mugged for his mobile phone whilst walking his dog at 4.40am one morning in Kennington.

He then went back to the police station where he made the original complaint and withdrew it.

The park wasn't known as a 'mugging hotspot' at the time.

There were rumours about homosexuality, but as there was no investigation and he was lauded for his eventual work at the theatre, everything went very quiet.

In the same way I think rape victims should be named if the accused is acquitted

Well you may as well just decriminalise rape then and have done with it, no victim would ever report being raped again.

And you do realise, that if there is a proven false allegation the accuser is named and prosecuted anyway?

lack of will to deal with sexual offending

Important. Hasn"t Sweden made a concerted effort to pursue prosecution? Thinking of Assange for instance.

You seem to be very ignorant of how rape and sexual assault trials work.

This man whose defense was that he tripped and fell on the 18 year victim with his penis was acquitted.

Even assuming that one accusation might be false memory, what about all the others.

Is Kevin Spacey vehemently denying these reports then? Is he threatening legal action for defamation? All I've heard from him is a half arsed apology and attempts to distract from the issue by coming out.

Others coming forward isn't hysteria btw, it is safety in numbers. Victims of sexual assault are always held to a higher standard than other kinds of victims and often disbelieved. You can't blame people for not wanting to go through that alone and it is understandable that you will get strength if others are reporting too.

I didn't claim to be an expert in rape and sexual assault trials

I am trained in psychodynamic counselling and know that false and repressed memory is very common. Especially in sexual memory.

I don't think he has made a statement yet apart from the apology.