To be angry about the Oritse Williams rape case?

[prettyinpink23x]

He's been found not guilty today by a Jury.

So many people on twitter are saying 'name and shame the woman, she's lied' 'she deserves a prison sentence'. This is infuriating! Do these people not realise that 'not guilty' does not equate with innocent and it doesn't mean she's lied?

Is it unreasonable for me to be angry about this?

Not guilty also means there wasn't enough evidence to implicate Oritse Williams in rape. Therefore he might not have done it but has had his name dragged through the court and news as a potential rapist.

It is a hard one. Personally I don't feel either party should be named until the conclusion of proceedings. While there are many, many man who do rape women and get away with it, there are those who do not yet have their lives ruined because of the allegations.

Definitely not unreasonable to be angry. I was angry when I read it, although not surprised at all. Rape is practically legal in this country.

It is absolutely not true that men's lives are ruined because of rape allegations. It is a complete myth.

I agree OP. The general population is very naive and ignorant when it comes to rape cases. They are extremely hard to prosecute and the stats for conviction are shocking.

@minisoksmakehardwork I don't think Oritse should have been named until he was found guilty but I also don't think everyone should blame the woman now. 'Beyond reasonable doubt' is so hard to prove these days and its so difficult for a victim to even get it to the court stage. You almost have to over prove his guilt and its not a decision based on balance. Both parties should have been kept anonymous but I do think people need to be educated more about the legal system and how it works rather than jumping to the conclusion that she's a liar. As someone who has been through the court process as a victim of rape I know how hard it is to get to that point and it is very rare for someone to lie and go through that much.

I think unfortunately people don't realise not guilty doesn't mean innocent it simply means not enough evidence to say yes this definitely happened.

It makes me angry too but anger doesn't help anyone and I'm not sure how to educate people who say and think vile things like that. Poor girl

Name and shame her for what though? Even if she had been found to have made it up what’s the point? People are so bloody thick sometimes

Just look at the reporting.

BBC "found not guilty"

Mirror "found not guilty"

Daily Mail "cleared"

Not surprising people are wrong when they are being misled by the media. Sexist, nasty, woman-hating media.

@MrsTerrypratchett I read the daily mail comments before and wish I hadn't! So many ignorant people

To be clear. First two accurate, last is nonsense.

The thing is I wouldn't now go out with Oritse Williams now. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't take that chance. He has been named. We shouldn't be dealing with naming and shaming the woman, but more that, until convicted, the man should not be named. Just my thoughts.

He should never have been named until found guilty. If he had to be named at the start, she should have had to be too. This will stick with him now.
We will never know the truth, but we will all think of him differently even though there is a chance he is innocent.

I read the evidence given by his manager who was also accused to sexual assault and was appalled. He didn't seem to have any concept of what consent was - none at all, in fact he seemed to be happily admitting he'd assaulted her. I'm shocked either was found not guilty but also not at all.

The problem is if you can't name, many more men would go free because other women don't come forward unless they hear their rapist has been charged. And so few men are convicted anyway, it's basically legal to rape women.

Yeah and how many women would report rape without anonymity in place?
Not guilty often can mean not enough evidence, trials can be ended though a technicality, it shouldn't be a green light to call the other party a liar.

In my eyes he is still dodgy. Maybe that is biased from my past experience with the court system but I am not willing to see him as completely innocent.

Neither party should be named until a conviction is secured. But it's good to remember that the amount of false accusations of rape are no where near as high as the media want you to believe.

And anyone saying that the victim should be punished for accusing/reporting needs to give their head a wobble. No one accuses someone of sexual assault or rape for shits and giggles. If you start punishing a victim when a not guilty verdict is reached you run the risk of no one ever reporting a sexual assault or rape out of fear of there not being enough evidence. Rape victims are already have a huge battle to be believed, to have their case dealt with swiftly, with sympathy and respect. You don't punish a victim just in case they might have made it up.

Article attached showing rape stats is the US. Note the amount of 'falsely accused'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/07/the-saddest-graph-youll-see-today/?noredirect=on&utmterm=.7ed5b07f3f7b&wprss=rsss_ezra-klein

YANBU. There is literally no reason to name the victim. He can sue her if she has made a false allegation.

A person who is raped has between a 1.1% and 1.8% chance that their rapist will be convicted. The future's looking pretty bright for would be rapists.

Garthfunkel -where can I read the evidence given?

So what does it take for someone to prove innocence? What else is there apart from a not guilty verdict?

@Florencenotflo I didn't have a court date till 3 years after my assault and the amount I had to get through to reach that point with all of the invasive measures and everything, I find it very hard to believe that any woman would go through all of that if they were lying. Most people don't know the half of how bad the whole police process is and everything. The only thing that kept me going was to hopefully get justice (which I didn't get in the end). If I didn't have that mentality I don't think i could have done it. I agree I think these statistics are inflated.

@regmover Usually if it is very obvious the person is innocent they will never reach the court stage. To reach court, the CPS have to be sure beyond reasonable doubt. This is not to say that some of those found not guilty are not innocent but that 'not guilty' is not synonymous with innocence.

In my eyes he is still dodgy and that is the sad part. He could be completely innocent.

They named the accused so that any other victims would come forward so that they could build a case.

In Scotland we have three verdicts - Guilty, Not Guilty, and Not Proven (which is meant to mean the same as Not Guilty, but most people consider it to mean ‘you did it, but we can’t prove it’)