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.

This was my thought too. How devastating for the poor girl to not only experience a gang rape, but to go through the entire judicial process for this outcome. I wonder if she even wanted to go through this process.

The overwhelming likelihood is that, as we've already seen, rape myths and tropes came into play.

There is absolutely no point in denying that there is a very small proportion of girls who behave this way.

The issue here is consent. They cannot ‘consent’ to rape.

Of course you do.

Independent witnesses carry far more weight in court, and as far as I can tell the witness to her saying no was her friend who was asking if she fancied one of them on the bus, and the timing seems very unclear.

The poor girl was called a slag immediately after the incident, then effectively called a slag by the jury. She will be living with that as well as the trauma of the assaults.
And I imagine where she lives, loads of people know who she is. And I suspect if she’s not a credible witness, and her friend isn’t a credible witness, her family may lack the wherewithal to up sticks and move.

No mate they underlined some words so it must be true.

I have heard at least 2 women, 1 a mother, 1 I'm not sure, implying that girls make up rapes to get boys into trouble. The one who isn't a mother had a family member being accused and was 100% on his side.

The mother has aired opinions like this when worrying that it's a hard world for men being accused of stuff all the time.

I wonder if she was court appointed or the son's family paid to hire a shit hot potentially morally questionable barrister that was also female

Ah none of us were there or know the evidence but you do.

That article says: Rape laws, which were strengthened in 2009, do not allow any child under the age of 13 to give informed consent about sexual intercourse. So if it happens, in the eyes of the law, it is rape; there is no defence of consent.

So the fact the girl was 13 is relevant for anyone arguing whether she was 12 or 13. I appreciate the article may have been updated to correct her age.

The law says that girls under 16 cannot consent to sex no matter what their behaviour is. There is a very limited defence if the perpetrator genuinely believed that a girl aged 13-16 was over 16.

Your points are valid but not pertaining to this case. The authorities obviously supported this girl, if they hadnt it wouldnt have ended up in court

The failure, and its the failure of every case that gets to court, is from the GBP, the jurors.

Not the authorities.

And the heart breaks for that girl.

It's quite common for defence solicitors to use female barristers for rape trials. There's a belief that juries will be more likely to acquit if the defence barrister is female. I don't know how this Shenton woman can live with herself, putting a young girl through that.

A friend of mine was raped back in the early 80s. She initially appeared to recover quite well, but the trial broke her. The rapist opted to represent himself for some reason, so questioned her directly. It was the most humiliating thing I've ever seen.

Thankfully, he was convicted and got 7 years, so was probably out in 4 years.

She never recovered, became an alcoholic and died before she was 50.

Perhaps I'm really, really naive. I can't imagine a situation where a 12 year old girl would consent to 3 people having sex with her at the same time

You're not naive. No 12 year old child would consent to this. It all seems to be based on the fact she didn't scream or fight so they're calling it consensual. I'm disgusted. I think someone upthread was right that she probably was judged in Court in some way. I despair, I really do.

Well I believe her and I hope she gets a lot of support and finds a way to live with this. But the impact of not only being raped at that age, but let down by a system that should protect you, I don't know how she can come to terms with that. Even adults struggle with it.

I was a criminal defence barrister for 16 years, it does take a very specific mindset in terms of the morality of it and being comfortable with your role in the criminal process.

You sleep at night, or at least I did and it's what I heard echoed multiple times by colleagues, because you see your role as a necessary element of justice being served and allowing the public to have faith in verdicts which find defendants guilty and imprison them because they have been afforded a robust and qualified defence.

It would be no system of justice if I was assigned to a case as defence counsel and every time my current offered up their version of events I said "I didn't believe you." Or "that's abhorrent, I'm not saying that." On matters of fact (unless you know it is intentionally misleading the court) you put your clients version of events to the court so the jury can decide.

Although there were definitely multiple colleagues who had God complexes and their motivation was to prove they were the smartest person in the room.

I hope there is a review of this. I saw the article and felt disgusted. This was a 12 year old girl. She cannot have possibly consented to have been gang raped in a bloody wood. I feel like she has been failed by the justice system. Those boys will do something again. What on earth had they been exposed to at that age to treat a young girl that way? Even if she had consented (which I doubt) they are thugs. Most of the 12 year old boys I know are more interested in Lego than gang raping girls in a wood.

I am also shocked that a ‘freeze response’ is being used as evidence of consent. I thought it was well established that fear can prompt this sort of response. Obviously I wasn’t there but some of the press reports make it feel shakey.

I think Rape myths among juries are a massive problem, which have caused catastrophic impediments for victims receiving justice for many survivors of domestic and sexual abuse especially for women and girls. Pure and simple victim blaming!

don you have any knowledge of court cases?

even if you don’t, haven’t you ever stopped to wonder how rapists are found guilty when they only people present were them and their victim?
How people are found guilty of assault, domestic violence, anything where the only people present is the victim and perpetrator?

How can that be If “of course” independent evidence is needed?

But we do know very few reported rapes result in a conviction. We know that the grooming of girls was covered up by authorities. We know raped girls are having to crowdfund to privately prosecute rapists and those who covered it up.

We know we have a huge problem in the U.K.

What are the public doing about that (some people even complained about a privately funded grooming / rape inquiry)? A private inquiry may not be as good as a government inquiry but it’s the best the public could do and I hope it showed the victims that thousands of us do care. We want raped children to get justice.

And i know far more fathers (personally) that have put money into the private rape grooming fundraiser than women or mothers. Anecdotal but it did surprise me.

As I said upthread if this verdict appalls you write to your MP. Put money into the grooming private fundraiser (it won’t help this young lady but will help other women who were raped as children). We are being watched globally and we are a disgrace.

we probably won’t, but I for one would like to because sadly I suspect that it’s very relevant. If there is an appeal and I sincerely hope that there will be then I think the demographics of the first jurors should be investigated and should be made available at least to the prosecution. I strongly suspect that decisions were being made based on sex rather than the facts but IANAL so cannot stay for certain obviously.

I think this may sound as a wake up call for the current state of affairs. In the UK the chances of a rapist being convicted is extremely small. Most women are put off reporting and if they do, court processes are drawn out and they can expect even now to have their character assassinated in court. This is most starkly put into focus by the interview on Radio 4 with Sue Fish, former CC in Nottinghamshire who said from the inside were she raped or assaulted she would not report it.

Rachel Shenton is an absolute fucking disgrace. The disgusting promulgation of every rape trope known, in her defence speech, makes for a thoroughly depressing read - if she’s trying to make sure no woman or girl ever reports their rape again she’s doing a marvellous job.
She’d do well to go see a performance of Prima Facie. We can but hope. And no, I do not apologise for that.

I thought if it was under age sex they look at the relationship between the participants. Can’t see how this would be deemed consensual under those circumstances. Would she be seen as fully understanding what was happening

And at the very least they should be in the shit for videoing it

You just need to watch The Jury on channel 4 to know exactly what happened in that retiring room. Time to get rid of juries.