To suspect police are worried about vigilantes - Epsom attack

[ReadingCrimeFiction]

I live relatively close to Epsom and so this appalling assault is all over my news feeds and social media.

BBC News - Town left in shock by appalling rape outside church
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dl5yevjg9o

The police have asked for witnesses but no descriptions have been given. Cue lots of very disturbing posts and comments from people who very clearly think these men are not white.

I can think of half a dozen scenarios where this is not being disclosed but, based on the comments, I think it all comes down to fears that local communities will take it on themselves to "apprehend" anyone who even vaguely looks like the perpetrators? And while the comments I am seeing are mostly white people being disgusting in their assumptions about brown and black people, i can imagine police would he equally concerned if, for example, the woman was Asian or Black and her attackers were white.

Is this where we are at? Where people make horrible racist assumptions and/or where police have to worry about how they will protect the broader community if they give any details of criminals?

That isn't the really important statistic.

This is typical obfuscation by people who don't want to look the truth in its awful face. Bury the difference between the behaviour of one set of men and another by including them in the statistics of all rapes, the majority of which are one on one and white because the major of the population are white. There is simply no precedent between previous rape convictions and the scale of the number of perpetrators, the number of victims, the selection criteria of victims and the ethnicity of the perpetrators of the Pakistani rape gangs.

The really important statistics haven't been collected. They are now, and we may begin to get the truth about whether we are willingly importing men with a greater propensity to rape, due to different cultural values, than second and greater generation born British men.

Isn’t this the epitome of nature over nurture? Are men built with an innate desire to sexually dominate, but the society they are raised in dictates the boundaries.

The Romans had no word for homosexuality, as they considered who you have sex with a preference, not an identity. Everything was acceptable with no age limits. When they wrote about the indigenous population of Scotland at that time they called them Barbarians. They were inferiors to the educated Romans. Heathens. Infidels.

The pp isn’t asking the protestors for apologies she’s asking women on here.

I agree with pp women can speak up about violence, and should do it more even.

If you knew the horrific abuse people have to suffer on social media before the police decide they have enough evidence to arrest someone you wouldn't flippantly be saying 'In a country where 30 people per day get arrested for social media posting, yet 89% of sexual or violent crimes go unsolved,'. It's not either or. There are different departments within the police and some crimes are easier to evidence than others. As has been shown by this case.

If someone sends abusive messages on social media from their own account the decision isn't who committed the crime but does it cross the criminal threshold. So people are arrested when it does. The far right like to play down 'hurty word' crimes as free speech but if you knew how much awful stuff is allowed before it gets to the crime stage you'd understand why those people are being arrested. It's horrific threats of rape, violence, murder and torture which ordinary people are subjected to by fixated individuals. Having had to report such a crime to the police I 100% know how awful and upsetting it is.

Yes rape and violent crime should have higher conviction rates, but if you'd been the victim of any crime you wouldn't think it was unimportant that the police did something to stop it happening to you.

People can abuse women online without the same constraints. Look at the abuse JKR gets, nothing. The law allows it. Another example of where the system deprioritises women with real outcomes.

A precedent was set when the government and the police tried to cover up the Southport murders. The Welsh choirboy nonsense fooled nobody.
I dont need to repeat what we now know.
The police need to do a proper press conference about what they know, and explain why they think that, perhaps, the crime did not happen, either as reported, or no crime happened at all.
The lack of transparency is exactly what kicked off the Southport riots. Do we really want all this again?

Actually you’re right, that’s weird. I’m wondering if she doesn’t report it? It would make sense that she doesn’t report as otherwise those who seek to cancel would have a field day saying she was using the very laws that she has pushed back against.

She does report some of it. I remember one case got to court, but nothing much happened, a measly suspended sentence.

The more woke contingent seem to believe it's racist/xenophobic to suggest that asylum seekers pose a greater threat to women than native British men.

If this is true then who is stoning women to death back in their home countries? Is it mainly female on female violence?

NCHIs won’t cover some of it in the same way they do other messaging as being a woman won’t count, although they’ve been dropped in some way.

Malicious comms I assume still counts. Regardless it won’t just be JKR. Any woman who sticks her head above the parapet politically or otherwise will get reams of it. The internet is full of angry men using violent messaging (I don’t look for it but some has been put up here).

The law doesn’t touch any of that.

I was trying to recall a recent article for someone who received violent abuse, rape and death threats. And got it, the Times Radio interviewer after interviewing a someone in Iran. Her name escapes me atm.

But it’ll be the same as so many women in the public roles, or not even due to that.

Yes rape and violent crime should have higher conviction rates,

The 2.7% mentioned upthread is the charge rate, not the conviction rate. Conviction is a whole other story.

I’m very sorry you have suffered a crime and while obviously threats of rape or murder online are terrible and must be stopped, unfortunately the Malicious Communications Act (and related laws) itself appears to be applied rather selectively. There are many examples of Islamic extremists in this country inciting violence and death in mosques or online with few arrests reported.

If the prosecutions were just down to ease of detection we would see some of those being arrested as well.

The Labour councillor Ricky Jones talking about so called ‘right wing fascists’ and invited a raging mob to ‘slit their throats’ was somehow cleared of inciting violence even though he was filmed clearly saying it. How was what he said ok but Lucy Connolly deserved 3 years in prison? Her social media post, while also unacceptable, had far less reach than his filmed speech but obviously a different target.

Women’s rights campaigners have had reams of horrific threats and doxxing against them and their families. A well respected university lecturer had to have security to escort her around campus. Another high profile professor was hounded out of her job by masked mobs setting off smoke bombs and issuing threats. So far there has been very few convictions. I can find a record of one so far.

I’m not downplaying the effects of online threats. I am saying that

a) MalComms laws must be applied equally to all and

b) our police forces have finite resources, are they spending more time (and judicial resources) on the ‘easy to solve’ crimes of online threats and not enough time on the detection of violence and rapes against women?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo?app-referrer=deep-link

Yes, the hate crime laws don’t have sex as a protected characteristic so women are not explicitly protected in that respect.

I guess the laws in Mal Comms should apply? but seems to be ‘patchy’ at best.

Meanwhile as reported in the House of Lords, only 11% of reported rapes are detected, the CPS brings a charge in only 2.7% of cases and the conviction rate is obviously less than that.

If society is measured in how it protects its vulnerable citizens, we’re not doing very well.

The Labour councillor Ricky Jones talking about so called ‘right wing fascists’ and invited a raging mob to ‘slit their throats’ was somehow cleared of inciting violence even though he was filmed clearly saying it. How was what he said ok but Lucy Connolly deserved 3 years in prison? Her social media post, while also unacceptable, had far less reach than his filmed speech but obviously a different target.

The difference is that she pleaded guilty while he pleaded not guilty & elected for a jury trial. The jury acquitted him after hearing all the evidence.

It’s rather noticeable that that she was sentenced to three years for arguably the same crime as Ricky, yet he used up court time in choosing a jury trial to try and obtain a different result.

Maybe this exposes the inequity in the quality of the lawyers available to Labour councillors compared to a member of the general public.

It wasn't "arguably the same crime" as he was found not guilty so no crime even occurred.

She admitted her crime. The punishment was harsh pour encourager les autres. She could have pleaded not guilty if she thought she had committed no crime & that a jury would acquit her.

If police had to deal with the daily amount of violent threats to women on SM they’d be overwhelmed.

There’s an example in site stuff of a violent post laughing on another platform. That kind of thing runs all day.

Nothing happens.

It clearly did occur as it was filmed and he said it. It’s a shame she didn’t get decent advice and selected a jury trial as well but this is the trouble when you have normal citizens trying to navigate our justice system thinking that it’s fair and that honesty is the best policy.

The jury decided that no crime had occurred. They heard & saw all the evidence before coming to their verdict which is more than you & I have done.

What “generalisations”?

It’s not a “generalisation” to describe their behaviour.

Given the observed intelligence levels of the protestors / protestors supporters absolutely they will believe, if no arrests made, that the police are deliberately lying to protect a criminal gang.
But because of neanderthal “protestors” they are having to provide updates like these.

You clearly haven’t met or seen all of the protestors yet you are commenting negatively on their intelligence, making personal insults and then unfounded claims about what they will do in the future. Sounds pretty generalised to me.

Where have you mentioned their behaviour?

and yet you would cry bigotry if the generalisations were about anyone else

It’s based on their behaviour and things being posted.

Behaviour that has pushed police into making statements which we reasonably would not expect at this stage.

Cry bigotry in criticising behaviour and actions?

Ok.

There was a guy saying he had CCTV showing who the attackers were, names and photos.
He apparently had a whistle blower from the police giving him details.
Not seen anything as yet but it does not add up….