AIBU to think rape is now legal in the UK?

[verdantverdure]

If there's almost no chance of a rapist being caught and punished then rape is legal, right?

Less than 0.7% are ever convicted.

Less than 1.4% are ever even charged

I'm not sure this is a government that cares about women, you guys.

The fact is that convictions for rape are vanishingly rare.

That is to say nothing of the process a woman has to go through with the police and with rape crisis centres. This is why so many women choose not to report, because the process is barbaric and deeply traumatising.

The intimate examinations. The endless questioning about the most awful things you can think of. Having your clothes taken away and bagged up while you sit there in paper. Having your phone taken off you with no prospect of getting it back. And this is before any kind of investigation never mind an arrest.

And it goes on for months and months and sometimes years before it gets to court, where you have to go through it all again, with slim prospect of success while your life has been destroyed.

Any woman who has seen this up close would know why so many complainants drop the case because they just can't take any more and need it all to stop. The process and the time it takes is unbearable.

Rapists should get life imprisonment, because destroying a woman's life is exactly what they do.

YANBU. Stalking and harassment are also now legal. I called to police to get some advice and do a check. A few months later when this perpetrator went through the courts for a different, unrelated and separate incident(s?) to this, a few weeks later I received a knock on the door from the police constable for a welfare check - a malicious and false report. Pervs very seldom if ever get caught.

Similarly, hen a woman reports DA, male perpetrators make counter claims and the police often believe that the woman has MH issues, etc when in fact they are reacting to trauma and abuse.

Thus government, and previous governments, do and care shit all.

It doesn't say 'historic rape', because it is completely unnecessary to spell that out. You are implying that people are completely incapable of critical thinking, and also that dialing 999 in the immediacy after being raped or assaulted will be met with 'this is a non-urgent matter' by Kent Police, both of which are risible.

It's quite clearly nothing more than a reminder by Police that the option exists to report things by non-urgent means as and when that is appropriate. The attempts to mangle it into something it patently is not are bizarre.

The custom and practice is that rape is legal. Yes it is illegal but only technically. It’s truly awful and depressing but even with firm evidence there seems no appetite to convict.

'Murder' is not specified on the list along with a multitude of other specific offences, but it does state "Crime (wide range of options)" which will presumably include those unspecified.

If you suddenly realised that you might be privy to some knowledge that may or may not be relevant to a murder, would you phone 999?

1000 women are raped and report it. (1000 = 100% of reported rapes. So secondary school's worth of victims - or two secondaries and a sixth form college, plus about five nurseries worth of victims if you extrapolate from the common statistic that 1 in 3 women (as in female) have been raped.)

Of those, 16 men are charged. (1.6% of 1000)

Of those 16, less than 10 - LESS THAN TEN OUT OF A THOUSAND RAPISTS - are convicted.

(data qualification: men, transmen and transwomen get raped by men, too - the article does not specify whether the data relates purely to female victims, but I suspect that their pain, trauma and suffering is also included in the statistics).

That's not showing anybody that it's illegal really, is it?

You are implying that people are completely incapable of critical thinking

People trained in the area aren't expected to understand how to write a poster about crime reporting but traumatised victims have to have all their critical thinking skills, even though trauma affects critical thinking.

Got it.

That's nothing close to what I have suggested, but since you appear to be determined to wilfully misrepresent the poster, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

The poor poster. I must apologise.

Rather than admitting trained bloody professionals should have known better. FFS.

Here's the thing, some of us can get all "But it is illegal and this is just silly". Well yes, of course, it's illegal but it's hardly silly to feel as though it might as well be legal for all the chance most victims have of getting to court let alone a conviction.

What's even more horrifying is that the conviction rates keep going down. I remember in the 1980s that among my friends none of us would ever have considered going to the police for rape or sexual assault because the odds were stacked against us and the police didn't take it seriously. These days the police apparently do take it more seriously and the conviction rates are far, far lower than they were then. They just decrease over the decades. That said I can't see how they can go much lower unless we have a year where precisely no one gets convicted of rape.

Yeah, @NeverDropYourMooncup

If 9990 rapists out of a thousand that are reported get away scott free then anyone feeling rapey might as well go just for it eh?

In London absolutely - dunno if it's better in other parts of the country.

Rape is not legal of course. Just very, very difficult to prove.

It comes down to one person's word against another's.

Unless there are wounds caused by violence what evidence are you left with, and the law must presume innocent unless proven otherwise.

It's an absolute bitch. I have no answers.

What terrifieds me is that the police to through your phone and your life history. It seems like you have to be essentially a perfect victim to get to trial. As someone with longstanding mental health issues, I doubt I'd pass that bar.

Yes it is an absolute dilemma MMMarmite. The accused is of course entitled to defence, and may claim sex was consensual. So of course phone records are invaluable in establishing previous contact if any, and the nature.

There is no real way to prove rape without physical injury.

A “false accusation” conviction is more likely than a rape conviction, despite the latter being more common to the thousands.

It’s to do with the law really, not the current government.

Rape is a really difficult crime to report and to prove in court.

It’s bloody disgraceful but I am not sure of the answer. Sex crimes against women are committed to a hideous extent.

I have a friend who has been waiting for years to go to court. That's down to funding. There's a massive backlog.

A government could do something about that. A government could put enough police on the beat so that police forces could attend a recent rape rather than asking victims to report it via a website and wait to be contacted.

Physical evidence needs to be collected before a victim can have a bath or change clothes. If it's not her case has no chance.

A government could spend enough money so that evidence wasn't lost as often as it is.

YANBU

Many many women don't even bother going to the police. Going through the medical process and reliving the situation over and over in court for the rapist to just walk free is too traumatic.

Every single woman I know has been harassed, assaulted or raped at some point.
Of all the women I know who have been raped, only one of them pressed charges.

Well yes, because the accused rapist may have an absolute cast iron alibi. Like the recent case where a woman accused several men and it was proved she was outside the UK at the very moment she claimed to have been raped in the UK.

Those are facts. If two people are in a room together and one says the other raped them, what have you got to prove or refute the allegation?

Physical evidence needs to be collected before a victim can have a bath or change clothes. If it's not her case has no chance.

Sure, you can prove sex took place! But if the accused claims it was entirely consensual?

Do you not see the dilemma? It's nearly impossible.

What would you advocate? Believe every claim?

I decided long ago that I wouldn't go to the police. Part of my best friend's family are really dodgy characters. I'd go to them.

On that logic you may as well declare that speeding in a car, trespassing, fly tipping, shoplifting, petty theft at work, vandalism, drinking under age, cannabis use, benefit fraud, harassment ... are also legal too.

I believe I would too Verdant

@verdantverdure that's a good idea 😂 you'd probably actually get a result you'd be happy with.

My rapist is living a lovely life with his wife and child and never had to think twice about the trauma he caused me. How nice for him 😑