The three boys accused of taking it in turns to rape a girl have been found not guilty

[Lougle]

The three boys accused of taking it in turns to rape a girl have been found not guilty on all counts despite some of the incident being filmed. How could that be? That poor girl. I believe in justice, I wasn't in court. I just can't understand it though.

Another article :

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2026-03-11/boy-accused-of-gang-rape-says-he-felt-happy-after-consensual-encounte

Being a raper survivor who was failed by the criminal justice system, nothing surprises me here, it's a patriarchal system that constantly let's down women & girls. I just hope that this poor girl gets the support to try & not let this ruin the rest of her life.

I agree but there just seems to be more violence in recent years. When my ds (mid-late 20s) it never seemed this awful.

There was a case in recent years where a woman was found naked, muddy and crying by passing motorists. She had been dragged down a muddy farm lane (IIRC) and raped. People reported hearing her screaming. She had injuries consistent with rape.

The man was let off.

Why?

She was wearing a black lace thong and so it was concluded that she had gone out that evening prepared to have sex with someone. So they couldn't conclude that she didn't consent.

That was reported about 3 or so years ago.

That is absolutely horrific.

The thing that doesnt make sense, the more I think about it, in terms of her saying 'yes' on the tram. Which she may well have done and children 13 and over are deemed as being able to to consent to peers, we know that

But the bit that doesnt make sense is that unless Ive got the boys muddled up, that was saying yes about the now 15 year old. Who was not able to have sex with her because he didnt have an erection. The boy who couldnt stand trial made her have oral sex and the other boy who was the oldest one was behind her at the time

Is that right?

So how does her (apparently) saying yes to the middle aged child, count for the other two? One of which couldnt stand trial and he was only 12 at the time, a year younger than her.

@Lougle If dc are (politely) not the most intelligent and watch porn which is widely available, they don’t have the filters other people have. Im not surprised but these children are all damaged. I would think this was acting out what they had viewed. It’s tragic.

With a life/long sentence, the jury might have been ultra careful too concerning beyond reasonable doubt. It would be better if we had a category for children who are not making rational decisions and need input from experts. Life imprisoned doesn’t feel like the answer.

Agree.

I've been on a jury, multiple trials during 2 weeks, and I've also sat, (for years for adults and youth, though now retired) as a panel of 3 magistrates.

I do believe the way to go with these very delicately balanced rape trials is a panel of 3 judges. Juries can be swayed by one strong member, who manoeuvres to get themself appointed the chair. Judges, by virtue of how they got to be judges, are three more equally balanced people in terms of their power. They will also have been given extensive rape-specific training which only a very rare jury member would have. They know all the tricks that clever barristers play to insert reasonable doubt into the minds of juries, and can see through them.

I believe that the conviction rate would rise markedly if we dropped juries for rape.

In law, a 13 year old can consent, a 12 year old can't. So technically the girl could be done for sexually assaulting the youngest boy who didn't have the capacity yo give consent.
I actually wonder if this muddied the waters in court.

I agree partly. The classic Twelve Angry Men-style idea is that right-thinking jury members will stand up to prejudice but it seems to work the other way.

Otoh several European countries don't have jury trials- do they have better conviction rates?

3 boys gang rape a 13 year old girl after sexually harassing her on public transport and following her off the tram. Their defence is “she said “yes” on the tram”. They get away with it and Joe Public believe them. Oh she said yes on the tram, what’s the big deal then? Case closed. Dear god.

The issue is still needing the evidence to show it’s beyond reasonable doubt. Whoever considers the evidence, they are working to this standard. Juries are less capable inevitably. Women are judges too by the way and there is a mix of backgrounds. However you cannot have bias one way or the other. It’s about fact and the law.

It's a difficult question to get an answer on. Our conviction rate is actually really high, reportedly 83%, but that's because we don't let cases get to court unless there's a very good chance of a guilty verdict. Sweden's conviction rate is lower but they take far less certain cases to court and as a consequence are believed to have a far higher percentage of rapes reported.

Unless someone was in court for the whole trial, nobody on here will have an accurate answer for you.

Clearly, those jurors who did hear and see all the evidence had doubts. I don’t know- and nor do you- whether they were right or wrong.

However, I don’t think reading some press articles gives you all the information either.

I’m not saying they’re innocent, the snippets in the paper suggest not and CPS don’t often prosecute unless they feel the evidence is sound. But, I also don’t believe a short press article can tell you all the facts and you can’t “know” the whole case by reading it. I don’t believe in trial by media/social media. We don’t convict people on that basis.

I do believe in innocent until proven guilty and it is up to prosecution to prove that guilt.

Having been a juror in a case of a he said/she said case many years ago, I can tell you it’s not an easy decision when what evidence there is is contradictory or inconclusive. You can’t convict someone because you want to always believe the (alleged) victim, you have to weigh up all the evidence. I get the feeling that some people wouldn’t even bother with a trial in rape cases- just convict on victims say so alone. I do understand the very real problem with rape trials and low conviction rates but I think the reasons behind this are complex and not easily fixed.

It still has to be beyond reasonable doubt, not on balance of "likelihood".

The law should be changed to balance of probability instead of "beyond reasonable doubt" in rape cases, because it is so hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt when the only evidence is the testimony of the people involved.

I'm beginning to think this, yes.

You can't ruin someone's life on the basis of "balance" of probability. A rape conviction will almost certainly mean prison time, serious problems getting a job in the future, etc. You can't inflict that on a "he said, she said" balance of probability.

I think the main problem is that we don't have different classifications of rape.

For cases like this, where there was no violence involved (from what we can read), maybe we need a new offence of something like "non consentual sex" with a lower punishment level, that a jury may be more inclined to convict on?

Or perhaps, given the obvious problems with consent, especially on young girls, we should make ALL sex with a minor illegal, and convict everyone where there is evidence that sex happened, regardless of consent, but again, not for "rape", but a new offence of under-age sex. Obviously that has the potential to catch people who ARE consenting, but after all, under age sex IS illegal.

It's the fact that "some" cases of sex maybe illegal are tolerated/accepted despite being underage because there is clear consent that poses the problem as under-age sex has become accepted and normalised, so the line where it becomes non consentual/rape has very muddied waters these days, especially when we factor in the imbalance of power when one party is older than the other, or where drugs or alcohol is involved, etc.

If we made under age sex illegal always, regardless of consent, and prosecuted for it, whether or not there was consent, the "consent" issue becomes irrelevant. The boy IS committing an offence, whether or not it's consentual, so if the girl makes a complaint, and the fact that they had sex becomes factual (from forensic evidence), then there is no doubt the offence of "underage sex" has been committed and the boy can more easily be found guilty, but for a lesser punishment that won't ruin his life in the same way that a rape conviction would.

Not saying it's right, but it's one possible option to deal with this kind of issue which seems to becoming a bigger problem as more and more under-age sex seems to be happening and the issue of consent has been an issue in all rape cases for decades. This may be one way of dealing with a particular problem.

Perhaps I'm missing something but in that scenario would the girl in question who had sex (consent or not) not also be found guilty of underage sex? Surely consent is critical to any prosecution?

If something is illegal, then it's illegal, consent or not, in my opinion.

Take smoking in a building or a works vehicle. Even if everyone inside consents to smoking, it's still illegal. Even if everyone inside a car consents not to wear seatbelts, it's still illegal.

If two people are consenting to have sex together, but are under age so it's illegal, then, yes, both have committed an offence.

If a boy knows that there's a possibility/probability of being convicted of underage sex then regardless of consent or not, he may think twice about actually doing it! That's a possible way of "protecting" vulnerable girls and probably a lot more likely to make him pause and have second thoughts than the much lesser risk/probability of being convicted of rape where he'd maybe continue even if consent was in doubt because he'd be thinking the chances of conviction were so low.

No it still needs to be beyond reasonable doubt.
It would be horrendous for a boy or man to be convicted of rape if he didn't actually do it.
I do think there are women who cry wolf, and it would be nieve to suggest there isn't.

Yep, as would 1000s of girls up and down the country

I think beyond a reasonable doubt is the correct standard of proof and it should not be changed. I also think most juries have no idea what that means in a rape case and carry a load of wrong assumptions about behaviour, consent, "certain sections of society", and likely responses during rape - oh the spectre of all those nasty girls and women crying wolf because - well a rape trial is like a holiday for a woman really isn't it? .

I would be concerned about anyone convicted of a crime they didn't commit. Wouldn't worry in particular about those included of rape though - the rates of conviction are in the basement compared to other crimes (where people apparently don't cry wolf")

So you'd be happy to prosecute an underage victim of rape because of their age? Please tell me I am misunderstanding your point!!!