To ask all Irish women to please show solidarity today?

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Please join the rallies in support of the victim in belfast today,theres rallies in Dublin belfast and cork. Enough is enough and we can not take this one lying down. Show support to the brave young woman and lets not have this trial be in vain.
Something has to change.

Juries act on the evidence - not on “education”.

Juries come into the courtroom with the same prejudices held by the wider population, many of those prejudices aren't held about other victims of crime.

No one thinks that a robbery victim is 'asking for it', if they are out alone, if they are wearing a certain kind of clothing or if they've had a few drinks. No one thinks that these are reasons to excuse the robber's behaviour.

If someone breaks into my house when I've left a window open, the defence don't offer this up as evidence that my burglary is a less crime or not a crime at all.

Idont I was responding very specifically to a previous posters' point that women aren't believed to the same extent as men. My response is pointing out that it is not as simplistic as that comment makes out and you've backed it up. Because as you point out, why believe one woman over another? Presumably, alongside other evidence? And it wasn't just men making that verdict.

WE were not in court. WE did not hear all the evidence. THEY, the Jury did. It is hard enough for them without having keyboard warriors slagging them off and not understanding why they did what they did because "they were clearly guilty".

You have decided they were guilty because you refer to the plaintiff as the victim. Were you in court to see every single piece of evidence and hear every single word of every single witness? No. But apparently the Jury are wrong and you aren't.

My saying that does not mean I think she was lying or that they were lying. It does not mean I don't think the plaintiff was treated well in court and that there are questions that ought not to be asked in court.

shatners I agree with you and think it comes down to the fact the witness had no particular motive to lie and the plaintiff did so the witnesses evidence was accepted.

But there is still a problem with how she was treated in court with clothes shown and inferences drawn from that and sexual history etc. If that had not been allowed I’m unsure if it would have changed the verdict, I suspect it wouldn’t, which makes an even more convincing argument for saying complainants shouldn’t be treated like that.

DP was a juror on a rape case where the guy was clearly guilty but the absolute facts could not be established beyond reasonable doubt. He wanted to find guilty, but met resistance from the other jurors. He persuaded them to go for not proven. To me, not proven means that everybody knows the guy did these sickening things, but as the accuser failed to take video tape evidence the law cannot find guilty.

To me, it's a message to the traumatised victim that she has been heard and beleived, but that unfortunately under our current legal system it sadly isn't possible to find guilty

I wept for that woman. There were oceans of stomach turning evidence against the accused but because she couldn't name dates and times etc, and kept taking him back (husband), it couldn't be proved.

Rape is basically legal, unless you carry a body cam.

DP also said that the worst cross examining lawyer was a woman. She actually laughed at the victims testimony.

Mightmucks, would you minding telling us what motivation the complainant had to lie, please?

Don’t forget that the ‘highly credible female witness’ is only to be believed in parts. They are supposed to believe her when she says it was consensual (even though she later conceded that she say no signs of positive consent so her opinion is based on the fact that the victim was not fighting them off) but they aren’t supposed to believe her when she said it was intercourse and the one defendant asked her to join in (even though those 2 points agree with what victim said and the even the other defendant thought they were having intercourse)

She wasn’t cross examined regarding her sexual history as far as I’m aware, happy to be corrected, but I’ve seen a number of people mention it online in the last 24 hours but I don’t believe that occurred.

This verdict made me cry, genuinely. I am horrified. I feel scared for women and I feel scared to be a woman, regardless of the verdict, the texts exchanged by those young men were truly disgusting and sadly indicative of the attitude of so many men today.

But snowy that equally applies to the prosecution
She’s to be believed when she says she saw sex occurring but not when she says the act she saw was consensual

I can see how a jury will end up with a doubt in those circs

@Quimby

Reporting can be inaccurate but I don't think that they'd make up a whole line of questioning.

www.thejournal.ie/ulster-rugby-rape-case-testimony-3848115-Feb2018/

Even if found Not Guilty - as also happened in the case of that English football player - the men involved have shown that they're absolute scumbags. One of the defendants did do a very carefully-worded apology to the victim, through his lawyer, yesterday.

That's precisely it Quimby. Unfortunately in these types of cases, many of them come down very much to Person 1 says X and Person 2 says Y with very little other evidence for juries to use to reach their verdicts. They do not have an easy job which is why I hate the knee jerk reactions to these cases as I dare say there may well be jurors who think the men MAY be guilty but they are sticking (rightly) to the overriding principal of "evidence beyond reasonable doubt".

I'm still not seeing lots of workable ideas to answer the OP's statement that Something has to change beyond certain questions shouldn't be asked.

But apparently the Jury are wrong and you aren't.

The thing you are failing to understand is that it's not that these men did not do these things. It is that it could not be proven that they did it.

The people with the most reason to lie about rape are the rapists.

Seeing as the false rape accusations are as low as for any other crime, and we all know that rape convictions are the hardest to get, it stand to reason to believe the victim.

Yes, I believe her. I believe they did it. And the only thing the court's verdict says is that it couldn't be proven that they did it, and knowing what type of crime rape is, that means jack shit.

Juells I totally agree about the guys being absolute scumbags. As I said here or on another thread, there is very definitely an issue over groups of young sportsmen and their attitude and pack mentality.

“Reporting can be inaccurate but I don't think that they'd make up a whole line of questioning.”

Sorry I may be missing it but where in that article does it say anything about her being questioned regarding her sexual history?

Idont No, I am not failing to understand that. MY personal opinion is irrelevant LEGALLY. As I put in my last posting I dare say there may well be jurors who think the men MAY be guilty but they are sticking (rightly) to the overriding principal of "evidence beyond reasonable doubt" because that's how our LEGAL system works. Who'd want to be on a jury in these cases knowing thousands of people basically think they got it wrong?

I don’t disagree with you there @Quimby, although personally I feel that for the girl walking into the room deciding what she saw was consensual is quite subjective whereas ‘I am 100% certain’ it was intercourse is a lot more subjective, especially when 2 other people are stating the same thing.

I said to DH all along that I thought the verdict would be not guilty, due to the element of doubt and I am not disputing that the jury verdict in that regard. I just dislike how the whole case was presented, the girl seemed to be on trial rather than the men. She was slut shamed and they were just lads and I think that’s what these protests today are really about

Agreed and the prosecution made that distinction and pointed out that one was an observation as to a physical act and one was a subjective judgment that might not always be possible to discern from what you observe.

But it did leave the jury in a tricky position because she was a state witness and that was her evidence given voluntarily in her statement. It wasn’t something teased out by the defence in cross or putting words in her mouth, so the defence then are still left with the opportunity to say to the jury “they want to cherry pick which parts of their own witnesses account are to be relied upon and the bits that don’t suit you’re to disregard” etc

The messages between those men tell us all we need to know about their attitudes towards women. I notice Paddy Jackson offered no apology to the victim, instead his lawyer banged on about how hard done by he had been oh and how supportive his parents had been in court every day for him. Well I wonder how proud they felt about those vile messages between their darling boy and his scummy mates?!
We are big Ireland rugby fans in our house but I never want to see that man on the field again.

This case just highlighted the flaws in the system, I wish i could go to the rallies, the way this girl has been treated is disgusting and makes me sick to my stomach for my daughters. anyone could find themselves in this situation, the truth is she has been degraded by them and the press and now the judge and jury!

I agree, it's horrible. Women are always blamed for supposedly 'asking for it'. Men apparently can't control their sexual urges and can't be expected to stop if the woman doesn't want to have full sex after all. And very sadly a lot of women have swallowed that myth.

The men in this case were obviously guilty, just like in the case of Ched Evans.

Repeat. The OP said "Something needs to change"

What? What is that something?

MY personal opinion is irrelevant LEGALLY.

Seeing as how the legal system fails women consistently and quite horribly, I really don't give a fuck about what is the legal outcome in rape cases and I only care about people's personal opinions. Men generally speaking get off and even if convicted the sentencing is usually derisory.

This is just another example of how women are failed time and time again.

@shatnerswig, what needs to change is the way victims of sexual violence (and women in general are treated), especially when they are brave enough to stand up and say what happened to them.