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 Ulster Rugby Rape trial exposed all the faults in the way rape is dealt with by our courts.

There was forensic evidence.
There was evidence of physical trauma.
There were contemporaneous texts for the victim claiming rape.
Including to the rapists friend.
There was the taxi driver's testimony.

But there was no justice for her. There is no justice for rape victims in the UK because rape is practically decriminalised in this country.

The thing that really pisses me off is how much we hear about unfounded allegations and the poor men they are made against. Of course it is terrible when it happens, but as it is less than 1% of reports, and the proportion of reported rapes is far less than the total, the amount of attention on it is completely unreasonable.

We need to listen to the survivor/victims more. What do they want from the investigation - a lot don't want to go through the court process at all. If that is the case then we shouldn't use these on the prosecutions statistics. The victim has got the outcome which was best for them, so perhaps it shouldn't be seen as a failure.

A lot are happy that they have been believed and the suspect has been arrested & interviewed - they don't want to proceed further and that is enough for them to start moving forward and putting themselves first. This would go down as a failed prosecution on the statistics - but should it fall into a different category? No conviction but a positive outcome for the victim (I know positive is not the right word there, but you get what I mean)

The statistics should also present to the public why the other 98% of the reported cases don't end in a prosecution. How many are through evidence difficulties, how many are through a jury finding them not guilty, how many are through the victim/survivor not wanting to provide any evidence or account.

Do we need to consider a closed court - so the victim/survivor is cross examined by the defence solicitor in a private room away from the court - perhaps done on another day. This can then be transcribed later to the court during the trial.

I really don't get what you mean @Felix125 because it sounds like you think rape victims go to the police, not to get justice, but just so a police person believes them. Have I got that right?

It also sounds as if you are more interested in fiddling statistics than getting dangerous, violent rapists off the streets.

its about showing the statistic as to what they are really reflecting. Its not all about a conviction or not.

I'm all for getting dangerous people off the streets and into jail - that's why i think the court processes need to change to help this.

But its more about putting the victims first and focusing on what they want and having the statistic reflect this. A lot don't want to go through the court process

I've never focused on the conviction rate when ever I have attended victims/survivors of these crimes and I don't think that we (as a society) should be putting any pressure on them to pursue a conviction if its something they don't want to do.

Sometimes a victim/survivor informs me that a rape has occurred to them in the past but is not wanting to tell me anything else (when, where or who it involved). Perhaps they are just not ready to talk about it yet, the incident will still be recorded as a crime and will be classed as another non-conviction - but I shouldn't be putting any pressure on them to tell me if they don't want to talk.

I just think it would help victims/survivors coming forward and reporting incidents if the statistics reflect this more and they are aware of all the different outcomes available to them. I sometimes think that victims/survivors may feel that the police will be pressure them into going to court if they make a report to make their figures look better.

A lot of victims/survivors don't really care what happens to the suspect - they just want to put themselves first and get access to the support available.

Another way to look at it is that the statistics show that in only 1% of cases the victims/survivors get a 'positive' outcome. Therefore in 99% of cases they don't.

But in the 99% are victims/survivors who have got the outcome that they wanted.

I think they published statistics should reflect this.

(I know 'positive' is not the right word again - but you know what I mean hopefully)

I think the police are shit at getting evidence and putting cases forward to prosecution.
I think the court system is so slow and drawn out it puts people off. They want to put it behind them and move forward in their lives, not keep dragging out something awful.
I think that guilty verdicts are so rare is because more weight is applied to the perpetrators version. Reading some of the survivors stories, even on this thread, it's hard to see how they were not found guilty.

Women want justice, but the odds are stacked against them.

I was raped & if I had known that there would have been a 1.6% chance of arrest I wouldn't have put myself through the hell of doing the video interview & being shouted at in my own home by a male sergeant.

I'm so sorry @Nat6999 and all the other women who have been raped and faced a system that further traumatised you.

There is the old maxim, people engage with the courts/police to get "justice", but what they actually experience is the "legal system".

The fact that there are any supports/specializations at all there is due to people like @Nat6999 , people who report, speak out, etc. Your experience of the male sergeant is totally shocking Wishing you all the best.

The fact there there was a serving officer in The Met (Wayne Couzens) whose nickname was 'The Rapist' speaks volumes about police attitudes, and not just the police.

So, do you think we need to consider a closed court? - so the victim/survivor is cross examined by the defence solicitor in a private room away from the court - perhaps done on another day. This can then be transcribed later to the court during the trial.

What is never talked about in rape trials is the jury. The Ched Evans case is awful - but you had to have a jury willing to believe that the evidence that "suddenly" appeared was relevant.

The reason the conviction rate is low is because a huge number of men and women believe that rape is "regretful sex". Until we deal with that myth, which many people believe, then the rate of conviction will be low.

That all comes down to the legal arguments in court between the prosecution & defence and the directions given to the jury from the bench

I don't think the 'regretful sex' comes into the figures. If a woman/man believes it was 'regretful sex' then presumably it would not have been reported as a rape.

The Ched Evans case had to be appealed to let this evidence in. That effectively reintroduced the "she loved it, regretted it later" aspect so common to many defence cases.

It's a factor from top to bottom from the moment it's reported to if it ever got to court. Our society does not believe women when they say they have been raped. I use the phrase "regretful sex" because it's apparently what some top level officers in the Met think rape is.

My ex worked in the criminal justice system. He told me that every rape case he saw was the woman wanting revenge. That was my warning right there.

He is a very good liar, very believable and I know there's no point at all in trying to report him. My dead son should be the proof I need but it still boils down to my word against his.

He got away with it all, he's swanning about playing the big I am, being lauded by so many as the great guy he appears to be, but he's just a weak little man who has to rape and abuse in order to feel adequate.

Should the legal basis change from - 'prove beyond reasonable;e doubt' to 'balance of probabilities'?

Should juries be taken out of the decision process?

I wouldn't bother changing the test. I wouldn't even encourage a woman to report it. The actual process of justice is traumatic from start to finish. Too often it is a man as a victim, not the actual victim. That is reinforced at pretty every stage if you bother to report it.

The reason for this is that society is very misogynistic - there were two officers last week convicted of sexual assault. Both had excellent records but clearly, they regarded women as lesser beings. Its not unreasonable to think even if they kept their mouths shut day to day, they too would have just regarded a woman's vulnerability as something a man could prey on. They would accordingly believe in "regretful sex".

You need to encourage people to report it - otherwise you don't get a true reflection of what is happening and effectively statistics will show that rape doesn't happen.

The justice process is traumatic - that's why a lot don't want to put themselves through it. And often these victims/survivors are more 'content' that the person has been arrested/interviewed and the victim/survivor has been believed and has been given the support they need. But they don't want it taken further.

Or they just want it reporting, but are not ready yet to say who it involved or where/when it happened.

All of these will go down as an undetected/non-prosecuted rapes and will be an undetected crime

But should the statistics reflect this decision made by the victim/survivor more?

I was raped and he confessed. The police excused his actions. So even with hard evidence the police dismiss it. Many people say it is because of the lack of evidence, this is wholly untrue. It is down to a quota that was used to raise the conviction rate that means most who report are dismissed as the police know it'll just get NFA'ed because of the quota.

This is how it has become the most legal illegal thing - like driving at 71mph, you're never going to get done for it.

When was this? - he should not have been NFA'd if he admitted it?
I take it you gave a statement etc etc

There is no quota that I know of - and every rape which I have crimed gets investigated and not written off due to a quota

Are they truly 'content'? Or are they weighing up that regretfully stopping there is less bad than adding additional trauma and stress to their lives. Maybe if the process were made less traumatic, these women would continue to persue justice.

There is definitely that - they don't want to relive it through the courts and they don't want the additional trauma. And I have suggested ways in which this might be made a little easier for that process to happen.

But a lot of cases, they just don't want to go down that route. They would be quite happy to go to court if they needed to - but for them, the fact that the suspect has been arrested, medically swabbed, interviewed, spent 12 hours in a cell is enough for them. After that, they just want to move forward with their lives as best they can.

Other times, they just don't want to report anything other than the fact its happened. Its enough for them to have it recorded as a crime and to know they have the option to go back to it if they wanted to.

For my part - I will try and encourage them as best I can to get a conviction and get the perpetrator locked away, but I will not put any pressure on them to do this. And what ever route they choose, I will respect their decision and support them as much as I can.

Yes he should but the police excused it and said that because he stopped eventually then what was my issue and also I had to expect it now with 50 shades of grey. They also recorded their own answers to thing when I was too slow to answer in my distress.

There is a quota that is well known for rape cases. Sadly it means that they investigated less to raise the % convicted. Take 10 men to court and convict 1 then that is a 10% rate. Take 2 men to court and convict 1 then that is a 50% conviction rate. It is well documented that this is a thing.