To think a woman isn't automatically lying if a rape trial verdict is not guilty?

[lilly0]

The courts in this country prosecute only on the basis of beyond reasonable doubt. In rape cases the forensic evidence might not be there and it turns into a case of he said she said.
Every other crime we don't seem to automatically call victims liars if the accused is found not guilty. Why is rape so different?

[MincemeatTart]

I don’t think we can say most cases that reach courts are guilty. The prosecution rate is too low but if we support the British justice system we have to accept that those found not guilty are indeed, not guilty. We can’t continue to assert guilt when there is insufficient evidence to prove it in a court of law. That would be justice by mob rule.

[SusanBunch]

Yes, there are liars out there. However, the job of the police is to investigate crime and to test the evidence that is given by the complainant. There are some people who lie about being raped, that is true. However, in most cases that leads to the charges being dropped because it's actually quite hard to maintain a credible lie over a prolonged period of time. This is not to say that all men whose cases get to court are automatically guilty, but it's likely that most of them did do something that falls onto the spectrum of rape. Same as most cases that get to court for other crimes usually involve a guilty defendant, even if they end up getting acquitted.

They still need a public hearing and they still need a fair trial, but I wonder whether we should move towards the Scottish system of having a 'not proven' verdict. Not guilty does not automatically mean innocent.

I am also deeply uncomfortable about the number of trials collapsing due to facebook and snapchat messages. We have surely accepted that rape can take place between partners and friends. In fact, it's very rare to be raped by a complete stranger. Unless there are messages confessing to making a false allegation of rape, I cannot see what probative value messages either pre or post event have.

But bear in mind that you can rape 100 women who are strangers and still get less than 10 years so I am not sure why anyone is so concerned about potential innocent defendants. Rape seems to have a minimal impact on one's life as it will now be assumed that you must be the victim of some lying bitch who made the whole thing up.

[Catsize]

Some juries leave logic and common sense at home. Unless it’s on CCTV, then the most obvious cases can result in acquittals. Whilst we have come a long way in terms of myths and stereotypes, there are too many cases where it is deemed to be appropriate to argue ‘look, she smiled in this photo with him two weeks later’ and so on.

[Shimmershimmerandshine]

but if we support the British justice system we have to accept that those found not guilty are indeed, not guilty

But that isn't what the British justice system says. Not guilty just means that the jury decided that the case couldn't be proven beyond reasonable doubt with the evidence available.

[kikisparks]

The stats are that an estimated 3% of rape allegations are false with a conviction rate of 5.7% as at 2005 (can’t find more up-to-date statistics). Even if you generously say that there’s a 10% margin of error in each there’s still a vast chasm of over 80% of prosecuted rapists walking free. Add to that only an estimated 1/3 Of victims actually report rapes and probably a lot of the reports never make it to trial and the sad fact is that the vast, vast majority of rape victims never see justice.

The balance of proof is an important point. In a criminal case it’s beyond reasonable doubt, in a civil case it’s on the balance of probabilities. Many, many women who have been raped where their attacker was not convicted will still get criminal injuries compensation because that uses a different standard of proof and it’s established that it’s more likely than not that it happened.

[KayaG]

I know of a case where man was accused of rape and was arrested and went through the early investigations. Within days the woman admitted that she'd lied because she'd stayed out all night and was afraid of her family. All he had done was dance with her in a club.

He WAS innocent.

However, if there is enough evidence to go to court then a not guilty verdict doesn't necessarily mean the man was innocent, although it depends on the case.

[Shimmershimmerandshine]

I think the whole 'credible witness' thing is one of the issues actually. If it is reasonable to assume that being raped will have a negative impact on the mental health of anyone then victims of rape as witnesses are going to generally be vulnerable to being labeled 'not credible' or torn apart in court. Perhaps if I was raped I would behave erratically afterwards.

[Wheresmyfuckingcupcake]

The thing about the text and social media evidence is that it needs to be found in advance. That way the police can get a statement from the complainant about it, disclose it to the defence, evidence can be given at trial about it and the jury can decide. All these cases collapsing are because it’s only getting disclosed at the bloody trial and it’s too late to do anything about it then.
Cases (not just rape) have been falling over because of disclosure problems ever since the CPIA came in 20 years ago.

[kikisparks]

Pengggwyn but in that case if you can prove sex took place it must have been rape as the victim was too intoxicated to consent.

[Shimmershimmerandshine]

Well hopefully there would be dna evidence

[Shimmershimmerandshine]

That was to the previous point. In terms of witnesses the aim must be to get to the truth and understanding of the witness being fragile needs to be taken into account to achieve this.

[SusanBunch]

With her version of events shot to fuck, both because she lied and because there is contemporary, written testimony from her that she has no idea what happened, all the accused would have to do is say he put her in a taxi.

Hardly any accused rapists say that it was someone else. They will usually say that sex took place but that it was consensual. Rape is a tricky crime because it is the lack of consent that makes it criminal, not the act itself. With consent, the same act is completely lawful. Whereas hitting someone over the head doesn't have that issue.

The texting cases don't necessarily disprove that rape took place. Sometimes people will be in denial and will say things to others that suggest that there was not a crime. Think about the number of DV victims who claim to have been injured in other ways, such as falling or bumping into things. However, I think people have begun to form an understanding of the fact that these lies do not make a DV victim less credible.

[Shimmershimmerandshine]

But the point is that it isn't working is it? The trial is only fair to the defendant.

[Shimmershimmerandshine]

I think pen everything you are saying is true but the point is that it needs to change if we are going to get more convictions of guilty rapists. It isn't easy, no one thinks that but people in vulnerable mental states lie, that needs to be treated sensibly and fairly as part of the evidence.

[SusanBunch]

But often the text message cases are not that the victim has lied about the event- they are that she has been in contact with the accused, has acted happy shortly after the event etc. These are then used as evidence that she can't have been raped because a real rape victim would not have done what she did.

How would you deal with a case where you were on a jury and a woman was accusing her husband of assault but the hospital admission record said that she told the doctor she fell off a stool at home and hurt herself? If there was evidence of her walking arm in arm with the defendant the day after the assault? Does that mean she is not a credible witness or could there be other reasons she has acted like that?

[hungryhippo90]

A person isn’t automatically lying if a rape trial comes back as not guilty. No.

I was sexually abused at the age of three. I sustained continued oral assaults, one night he tried to rape me. He was telling me he would kill me if I didn’t keep quiet. He was found in my room on top of me naked from the waist down by my mum.

The police were called, he was arrested.
I went for a physical investigation- which by the way was harrowing. I was crying to the Drs that “he” had hurt me down there and please stop.
My mum told the police about his penis as she had seen him naked from the waist down (he jumped out of my bed with the excuse that he’d heard me crying and went to get me back to sleep!)

He was still found not guilty. I don’t know whether it was that I didn’t explain what happened to me well enough. Or that I wasn’t still enough for the medical, or what, but I wasn’t believed, and it’s awful knowing that he got away with it.

So no, not everyone not guilty is innocent. And I would 100% give any man a wide berth who had been accused and there was enough evidence to get him to court.