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?

@MrsTerryPratchett you're a very angry person , and it's this type of rage that leads to false accusations of rape. Get a grip please .

Only 1.7% of reported cases are prosecuted at all - out of 100 women who actually report a rape to the police, more than 98 of them won’t have it go any further.

2018 figures: Out of 100 reported rapes, 35 are dropped by police due to victim not supporting action. 60 are halted by police, 5 are passed to CPS, who prosecute 2 and convict 1.
Of the 60 halted by police, some will be because the perpetrators can not be identified and some perpetrators can not be traced, some will be charged with other offences, but most will have no prospect of conviction.

The 1.7% figure is shocking, but the figure is only 8% for all reported crime.

you're a very angry person , and it's this type of rage that leads to false accusations of rape. Get a grip please .

No I'm not. No it doesn't. No I won't.

Did you RTFT?

He is my cousin.
He should never have been named.
No-one should be.
However it is so wrong to presume he was found not guilty due to lack of evidence.
That's the law of the land and he was found not guilty, it should be left as that. Unless you were there.

How can a pp declare that it's a 'myth' that men's lives are ruined by rape claims? What utter nonsense! A man I know very well had his life totally destroyed by a girl falsely claiming rape (and it turned out there was CCTV evidence that her story was totally made up, and she admitted it afterwards, so he was totally cleared). He has been a shell of himself ever since - he's gone from a successful, outgoing, friendly guy to suffering from severe anxiety, depression and paranoia, he's still terrified he's going to be attacked on the street by someone who has heard the story so barely ventures outside anymore unless it's totally necessary. He's lost his job due to anxiety attacks, he's moved to a new town to get away from the place where it happened because he's so shaken, and he's left his fiance who he was living with and planning a family with as he's frankly terrified to be involved with another woman.

This ruined his life, she lied, and I think she deserves to have some consequences for this, doesn't she? If a man made fake allegations against a woman which left her so devastated and shaken up that she suffered mental health problems and lost everything in her life, I think people would want him to face some consequences.

Another woman in my town is already in prison for lying about being raped. She claimed she had been raped in an alley by this man who said they'd had consensual sex in his home. She denied ever having been to his home and said she didn't know him before the attack. After he had been in prison for 6 years, someone came forward with photos which caught them in the background showing very clearly that they did know each other quite well, and when the evidence was reexamined her DNA was found on his bedsheets. She's gone to prison but that guy has still lost 6 years of his life and been violently attacked on many occasions in the prison by other inmates who thought he was a rapist.

Why can't people accept that this is a tragedy on both ends and can shatter lives of men and women? Yes, if a woman is raped it devastates her life and I have full sympathy for her and think she deserves to see her rapist locked up. But surely there has to be a middle ground and not just this attitude that 'well it's hard to get a conviction of rape so if literally any man is accused we must believe the rapist 100% and if the man's found out to be innocent, so what? He probably isn't, and even if he is, he just has to deal with the consequences of being falsely accused because I still think he might have done it because it's hard to get a conviction of rape so that might be why he wasn't convicted.'

I just think that there needs to be more compassion and not just people leaping to conclusions.

I don't know much about this particular case but if his career is over that's entirely more likely to be down to the fact that his career was based on being in the type of group who have a limited career span, not on having been on trial for rape. The public are very forgiving of men accused of rape, as a quick look at the world of showbusiness, and particularly sport, will prove. Even on the rare occasion that a high profile man is convicted, the public sympathy tends to be with him, not his victim.

The other thing I've noticed from newspaper reporting and social media is that every single time a high profile man is accused of a sexual crime there is a huge outcry that his accuser should be prosecuted and his case prevents justice for real rape victims. But where are the real victims? Because everytime a case is reported people are clamouring to point out that this case is clearly a false accusation. It's always some other unidentified case that people of course have the utmost sympathy for.

I find it weird how so many men say that rape is an abhorrent crime that shocks them to the core and yet simultaneously believe that almost any man accused of it is a poor innocent victim of a vindictive woman. If every accusation is false then how can it damage anyone's reputation?

This is why we have a jury, I do think it’s harsh when one party is named when not the other. I would prefer neither are named unless found guilty

Were you present at the time of the alleged offences? - so no!

Have the accusers been prosecuted and found guilty of falsely accusing? And again no!

How do you know these men? And only 1 of them!

So you DON'T know for sure what happened in those cases at all!

"and it's this type of rage that leads to false accusations of rape." What utter rot! And a disgusting allegation too!

This type of rage is the result of overwhelming injustice and oppression of girls and women supported by the state!

What could be changed?

We need to go RIGHT BACK to when accusers first report.

Police

Police need seriously MUCH better training in how to handle reports and how to treat those reporting. I know it IS much better than say the 70's 🤔 but while we STILL have police forces signing off on appalling victim blaming ad campaigns that are supposedly anti rape, who are failing to record reports, telling reporters they're time wasters and troublemakers, who are covering for abusers and rapists in high positions - we CLEARLY have a VERY long way to go. The default should NOT be "you're lying" or "well look at how you're dressed what did you expect?"

In fact I'd say we need to go right back to how police officers are recruited! Iirc there's been instances of people becoming police officers when there's been allegations against THEM!

I agree with a pp we need much more transparency and accountability in how the police are handling reports of sexual abuse and rape.

In the courts

Seriously overhaul education and training for lawyers including judges. There's been some truly dreadful examples where it's clear they don't understand consent and have even wrongly advises juries.

Sort out the poor investigation and performance of prosecuting lawyers. (Unfortunately I understand this is partly as there are recruitment issues due to it being a public service role and so not able to attract the best applicants - but there NEED to be minimum standards that are far higher than currently. I also understand its lack of resources to perform those tasks - yet another example of how low priority this govt considers girls and women)

Stop defence lawyers sneaking in bullshit about the accusers sex life! It's irrelevant (and if you want to argue it is relevant then the accused's sex life is too! Including if they've been accused of similar offences before)

Bring in "enthusiastic consent" laws. A lack of "no" is not a good enough defence.

Stop how the accuser was dressed even being mentioned - again completely irrelevant!

Bring in "outcry" laws to allow evidence from the people the accuser disclosed to in the aftermath more widely.

Strictly regulate how evidence of drug and alcohol use and history of is handled.

Strictly regulate "evidence" in the form of the accuser and defendants prior relationship, I'm tempted to argue again that it's irrelevant because of things like spousal rape but appreciate it can be a bit more complicated and could even help to establish a defendants unhealthy interest in the accuser. But equally an accuser saying they fancied the accused a month earlier on FB does NOT mean they consented.

Create guidelines for handling of evidence regarding "rough sex" with input from experts in the field not just medics.

"I just think that there needs to be more compassion and not just people leaping to conclusions." You mean like how girls/women are treated if they report a rape? How they're assumed to be lying if:

They already knew him
They're wearing "revealing" clothes or heaven forbid just OWN "sexy" underwear
They were drunk/high - especially if under 18
They agreed to go to his place
They have a "history of promiscuity" - especially of any sexual practices considered "outside the norm"
They have a history of "delinquent behaviour"
They've ever accused anyone else of assaulting them (even though we know many victims are assaulted more than once by completely different assailants, that being a rape victim once makes you MORE likely to be a victim again not less)
They get the date/time wrong because they were confused/traumatised...

Like that you mean?

Isabelle - we're still (as a society) FAR too entrenched in "real rape" is by a stranger, probably older and unattractive, in a dirty Mac, with a knife grabbing the victim and raping them in a bush or alleyway in the middle of the night! That there is ALWAYS obvious violence.

When the VAST majority of rapes are:

By someone the victim knows, possibly even knows well
By "normal" even attractive men (the idea that they don't "need" to rape because they can "get sex easily")
In places many of us would feel safe, even relaxed
Don't always happen at night
Don't always involve obvious violence or violence that leaves evidence.

There's also the myth of the "real victim" who:

Is not sexually promiscuous
Is dressed conservatively
Is sober
Has not "put herself in a dangerous situation"
If not a Virgin is sexually unadventurous
ALWAYS says a clear "no" to her rapist probably early on in the incident and repeatedly
ALWAYS tries to fight her rapist, get away or cry out for help.

We NEED TO BUST THR MYTHS!

Have you heard of that study where men were asked (summarising) if they had ever raped someone - except the word "rape" wasn't used but the scenario was clearly one where the woman hadn't consented? And a shocking number admitted they had?! We NEED to teach men what an actual rapist IS - it is ANY boy or man who penetrates another person WITHOUT their consent.

I strongly suspect that the reason there's SO much resistance to this idea is because most men have at some point raped or come VERY close to raping someone and they can't face that.

Pinkboa I reported for victim blaming I doubt I was the only one and you're STILL doing it!

Exactly Isabelle - perfectly summed up. It’s amazing how many people claim to know those who’ve experienced such clear cut cases of false allegations, with evidence and confessions, yet the latest figures available show only 35 people charged with offences relating to a false allegation in the whole of the U.K. in a 17 month period. You can bet your arse that if there’s CCTV evidence explicitly disproving an allegation, they’ll be charged with wasting police at the least (although “CCTV evidence” in some people’s minds is them acting “lovey” before anything bad is supposed to have happened, and “admitting it” often means recanting their statement)

None of this is relevant to or about this case since it doesn’t apply - there’s no evidence to suggest she was lying, the system clearly had sufficient evidence to prosecute. Why would naming a potential victim in this situation be a good idea? Our system names those being prosecuted for crimes, not alleged victims. If there’s sufficient evidence to prosecute them with crimes relating to false rape allegations, then they’ll be named, regardless of whether they’re guilty or not - that’s how the system works. All those saying we should respect the system and arguing this are hypocrites.

pinkboa probably because you said abhorrent victim blaming things like you did in this post I imagine...

Facts are women like sex some women are more liberal in how they go about satisfying their sexual needs. To say she went back for a chat is ridiculous.
Yes, lots of women do like sex, and clearly society still judges them for that. And they deserve to have sex only when they want it, when they have capacity to consent to it, and they have the right to change their minds at any time, just as men do. It seems you have forgotten this. And yes, women who want sex and have a “more liberal attitude* have this used against them by a misogynistic justice system if they are ever raped.

And even if she lost something/ was too intoxicated etc. What woman in 2019 goes out by themselves? I know I don't because of the risks and yes it shouldn't be like that but it is. I personally would have found my friends instead of going with a stranger to their hotel
All completely irrelevant. Nothing she could have done would make sexual assault acceptable.

According to the media it was cctv footage that aided in the verdict because on leaving the venue they seemed "lovey/like a couple". We can assume at some point consent was withdrawn... but we don't know
Most women are raped by a man they know. It’s utterly disgusting that how a woman behaves towards a man before an alleged rape occurs has any bearing on whether it’s seen a rape or not. How is it relevant how anyone acts before an alleged sexual assault occurs? Or do you think that if two people really were a couple, one couldn’t rape the other?

I don't think he should have been named and I don't think she deserves to remain anonymous. It's either name both parties or none until a verdict is read...barring children
It has already been explained in this thread why it’s in the public interests to name people on trial for crimes, and particularly sexual offences. What’s the benefit of naming the victim? Do you think naming alleged victims will help or hinder the shocking rape reporting and conviction stats in this country?

As pointed out above, conviction rates for all crimes are shockingly low, but still five times higher overall than for rape. And if you take into account the estimates for how many rapes occur, it’s 1100 convictions for 155,000 rapes in a year. And for a previous year (because we don’t have more current info) only 35 people were prosecuted for offences relating to false rape offences.

@graphista “most men have at some point raped or come VERY close to raping someone and they can't face that.” I’m sorry I feel very strong against that, and yet feel very sorry for the life you’ve lived

You can't say that more men should be convicted of rape purely on the basis that not enough men are convicted of rape. It's not about hitting a quota. It's about the jury considering the facts and evidence in each individual case.

Imagine a world where you could be convicted of a crime, despite lack of evidence against you, just because people thought that people of your demographic seem the sort to do that thing.

I don't think she deserves to remain anonymous

Why on earth not? And even if she had done something to warrant this, what about the knock on effect on other victims too scared to come forward in case they’re named?

@Graphista

Please re read the post not just selected parts.

They were not charged as my local police do not charge for false allegations. Especially if the person is under 16 or disturbed or vulnerable in any way. It is highly discouraged because the belief it prevents women coming forward. Read some force policies online. Get informed.

Until there is a guilty verdict, I think it’s disgusting that he has to carry around the label of rape for his whole life when he has not been found guilty

Its my understanding that this is the case for all adults accused of crimes

Except some crimes are regarded as more heinous than others...

I understand where Graphista is coming from - more than half of my sexual partners have sexually assaulted me.

When you see how it happens in reality - how the coercion and pressure is applied, how it makes you doubt yourself, how you blame yourself and try to carry on as normal afterwards because you’re so shocked and confused, you understand how common it really is. I realised how many women wouldn’t even consider assaults they’ve experienced as such.

How many women have never been with a man who’s tried some tactic or other to get them to do something in bed that they don’t want to do? How many women struggle to speak up in the moment if a partner is doing something to them that they didn’t / wouldn’t consent to and don’t want to do?

I had this conversation with a male friend when all the MeToo stuff was kicking off and it was really a lightbulb moment for him - all those conversations with his friends in his teens and 20s about what they’d managed to get out of girls / women sexually, he never saw that for what it was because it was just so normalised.

He admitted himself that as a teenager he would nag girlfriends to touch him or vice versa, and I know how those early experiences shape girls’ developing sexuality anyway. From his perspective it was what all the boys talked about doing to get girls to give them sex (because girls didn’t really want sex apparently), but he couldn’t do things when he could tell they didn’t want to, and he remembers feeling resentful that his “pushier” friends were getting sex and he wasn’t. This rings true of most my early sexual experiences too, and I know from from talking to female friends that they experienced the same. These days of course it’s pestering for nudes etc.

At first I was really upset with him until
I realised this was true for pretty much every man I’d ever been with, and for some of them it was worse. This is completely normalised behaviour, I doubt there are many women on this thread who didn’t experience it if they had boyfriends in their teens. We are conditioned from our earliest sexual encounters that men will push our boundaries and often it’s easier to just relent. I’d like to believe this isn’t the case for the majority, but I believe it is. So not all men have raped or been close to raping, but I believe the majority have used some technique or other to push past a sexual partner’s boundaries at some point, and most absolutely do not want to acknowledge this. They’re the normal guys while rape and sexual assault are things that evil twisted sexual predators do. The reality is quite different.

Like I say, I do wish the Reddit Ask A Rapist thread hadn’t been taken down because it was a terrifying insight into the things some men tell themselves to justify doing things without consent.

Some snippets are quoted in this article for anyone who wants to read them, obviously trigger warnings apply:
jezebel.com/rapists-explain-themselves-on-reddit-and-we-should-lis-5929544

That Reddit thread is very interesting

So shoot me down in flames 🔥 but it does bear testimony to the ‘be careful’ argument

Now no one can prevent stranger rape , or familial abuse . But for cases of what’s referred to as ‘date rape’ if I had a DD I would warn her . And when my sons come of age I will warn them . Had I known what I know now I would have behaved differently as a young woman.

The male of the species is much more dangerous than the female .

“Enthusiastic consent” laws?

How on earth are you proposing that would work? It still relies on one persons word against another, just like it does now which is at the root of this problem.

Unless of course you’re suggesting that before any sexual activity takes place a short video should be made of both parties giving their ‘enthusiastic consent’? But what if one then decides to change their mind post video?

As a mother of both a DS and a DD I make sure that, alongside consent clearly, both my DC understand the things they can do to try and protect themselves as much as possible from harmful situations. That includes not drinking until they are incoherent, not leaving their drink unattended, not walking alone at night etc. It will also include not going back to hotel rooms with people they met for the first time that night.

That’s not victim blaming, it’s common sense. Sadly it can’t protect them from every situation because their are some horrible people out there, however there are certainly some situations that can easily be avoided which removes at least some potential danger.

This was a discussion on the feminist board recently and people asked for ways in which conviction rates could be improved and no one could really answer it

OK, here's some.

Let's get the police to make rape a priority - the Met's Gold standard sapphire unit that was set up specifically to investigate rape was quietly disbanded earlier this year, and those specially trained officers are now sent to other crimes that aren't sexual offences if they come in first.

Let's get the police to conduct thorough investigations - often they are sloppy, don't get vital witness statements/say it will cost too much to get forensic evidence/don't get CCTV. Some will lie about it. Most recent case in the media was of Essex officers DC's Pollard & Patterson who destroyed evidence etc in several child abuse cases. They aren't isolated officers - some get scapegoated and made an example of, many don't even go through the complaints procedure.

The CPS - they are closing cases at a rate of knots citing reasons that belong in the 70's - a jury would find it hard to convict based on your behaviour/you got a tiny detail wrong/you were so young your memory isn't reliable/too drunk to remember etc. These are reasons I have seen in CPS letters to victims. They can spend more time looking for reasons to doubt the woman rather than chase the police to get the evidence that proves her case.

The prosecution - I've sat in court and watched cases fall apart because the prosecutor either wasn't given the evidence from the police/CPS or didn't use it. If you don't believe me, sit in on a rape trial and watch how many times the jury is sent out while a point of law is argued about evidence that they either should or shouldn't hear. See how many times it's decided that they can't hear crucial evidence because there was loophole, or the prosecution didn't disclose it in time to the defence. And then watch that trial end in an acquittal. I sat through one trial where recordings of abuse weren't allowed to be played to the jury because the prosecution hadn't even put those recordings on a list of evidence that would definitly be used. The judge told the prosecution that the recordings should have been key evidence but couldn't introduce them at that stage. That ended in an acquittal, too.

Then there's the judges - remember the one who, when sentencing a man for raping a 13 year old child, said that the child 'wasn't exactly an angel'. With views like that, should they really be presiding over rape and child abuse cases?

One of our local courts was set up so that one morning a week it specialized in DV cases. I sat through a couple of hours, in which time nearly every single case had a problem with the evidence either not being there or having not been gathered in the first place. SO the magistrates hands were tied with what action they could take, and many cases were just thrown out. We need to start treated these cases with the seriousness they deserve.

We need to stop prosecuting women for so called false rape allegations. Would you come forward and report being raped if you though there was a chance that if you got one detail wrong, or the police decided they didn't believe you, that you could go to prison?

Let's make police/CPS/judges/barristers accountable when they don't do their jobs properly. If you knew you faced the sack/prosecution if you didn't conduct a proper investigation, apply the correct charges, prosecute a case using all the available evidence, or blamed rape victims even when the defendant was found guilty, I think you'd up your game. The more evidence there is the more likely a case will end in conviction. It's not rocket science. Of course juries can't find someone guilty on someone's word. So let's find as much evidence as possible to prove that the victim's account is what happenned.

We don't want anonymity for men accused of rape, we don't have anonymity for those accused of terrorism/murder/child abuse so let's not single out rape. And I'll say it again, if we had anonymity NO-ONE WOULD KNOW ABOUT JIMMY SAVILE

If juries saw rape cases being treated with the seriousness they deserve from the authorities they may not be so quick to dismiss victims as liars, and more rapists would be convicted.

We don't want anyone accused of a sexual offence to be found guilty automatically. Just those where the evidence shows their guilt, and is gathered and put to a jury in a fair and honest way, without a defence barrister using a woman's character/behaviour against her so she looks like a liar.

And we need people to stop assuming that women are more often than not lying about rape. Because for those of us who have been raped and not seen justice, and have been accused of lying about it, be it from social media/friends/local communties etc, that's a lot more damaging than being acquitted.

@onefootinthegrave. 40% of alleged rape accusations never reach court because the victim doesn’t want to pursue action. The next biggest reason is because the perpetrator is never identified I.e stranger rape. Then lack of evidence.

That doesn’t indicate that it’s the CPS or the police messing up, albeit there may be cases where the victim is advised not to pursue action due to lack of evidence etc but we can’t actually know that.

Totally agree that there is far more we can do to support rape victims but the sad fact is that by that point the damage has already been done.

We need to be focusing on educating our children so that the culture that we have now changes. So they understand what consent is, they stop putting themselves in dangerous situations where there can be any discrepancy or misunderstanding over whether consent has or hasn’t been given (on both sides) and where drinking/drug taking until incoherent isn’t the norm.

So shoot me down in flames 🔥 but it does bear testimony to the ‘be careful’ argument

I disagree - women can’t prevent rape. They might make it less likely they’ll be raped. The only ones who can prevent rape are men.

If that Reddit thread taught me anything it’s that a massive proportion of rapes could be prevented with better education around consent and bodily autonomy. There were a couple of (very disturbing) exceptions, but the majority did not think of what they were doing as rape at the time, even while they simultaneously knew that their partner didn’t really want to be doing it. Several realised during the act, when looking at their partner’s face, and stopped. Most realised years later. Some never figured it out at all.

We need:

• Better understanding of what rape and non-consensual sex actually is
• To stop normalising coercion and boundary pushing as part of sex
• A system that actually acts as a deterrent to men who consider prioritising their orgasm over a woman’s bodily autonomy

That article only skims the surface - there were hundreds of posts by rapists, describing the time they raped someone, many not acknowledging that it was rape. Many expressed remorse when it became clear to them that they were a rapist, or when it was pointed out to them in no uncertain terms.

This is a serious issue. These men are our sons, brothers, friends. The answer to this is a social one. The legal system needs to be effective when this breaks down, but this alone would prevent massive numbers of sexual assaults.

40% of alleged rape accusations never reach court because the victim doesn’t want to pursue action. The next biggest reason is because the perpetrator is never identified I.e stranger rape. Then lack of evidence

That doesn’t indicate that it’s the CPS or the police messing up, albeit there may be cases where the victim is advised not to pursue action due to lack of evidence etc but we can’t actually know that.

Why do you think 40% decide not to pursue action? Do you not think that the actions of the police during the course of reporting, or the police advising the victim that CPS are unlikely to pursue the case, may be a factor in some of them?

There was an utterly horrific story shared by a MNer on a recent thread on this topic. Her case did eventually go to court because, after being told that waking up on the floor of a complete stranger’s house having been raped was a “grey area”, she found he had recorded video evidence on her own phone which included part of the assault and the rapist’s face.

He was found not guilty anyway.

If you read my post properly, I did say that might be part of the reason but that we don’t actually know that....which we don’t in all cases.

It’s why the police now want to be able to access the phones etc of victims so that they can gather all evidence more thoroughly. Yet there’s a major outcry about that.

In the case you mention above, not that I’ve heard of it, if the police had access to the victims phone then that evidence would have been found and the evidence more concrete so perhaps they wouldn’t have suggested there wasn’t enough to prosecute?

Unfortunately in many rape case, due to the nature of the act, there isn’t much evidence and it’s one persons word against another.

@onefootinthegrave. 40% of alleged rape accusations never reach court because the victim doesn’t want to pursue action. The next biggest reason is because the perpetrator is never identified I.e stranger rape. Then lack of evidence

Dorsetdays can you send me the links to evidence what you've quoted? Because I've never seen them and I'd like to. No offence to you, but I don't believe them. I've never seen official figures that back up what you've said, and from my experience 1) as a victim of rape who went through the 'justice' system and 2) Now working with other victims of rape and domestic violence this is absolutely not the case. All the reasons I gave in my last thread are things that happen day in, day out. Many victims DO want justice and are denied it.