Amber Heard&Johnny Depp post verdict

[Miscfeminista]

Continuation of previous thread:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/feminism/4560089-amber-heardjohnny-depp-verdict?page=1

and the one before(during trial):

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4552076-amber-heardjohnny-depp-trial?page=36&reply=117586863

Also, refresher on DV:

www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/recognising-domestic-abuse/

IrisVersicolor · Today 11:40

She made terrible claims about him, the one about the bottle being the pinnacle, and if you're going to make such serious accusations there needs to be compelling evidence to support them.

You’ve basically just dismissed the majority of sexual assault, rape and sexual abuse cases. Are you aware of that?

Sex offences often come down to one person’s word against another.

What goes “compelling evidence” mean to you?

This is what makes sexual assault cases so difficult to prosecute and convict in a system which presumes innocence. If it is a he said/she said case without much concrete evidence then it is vital that the one making the accusations is credible and doesn't lie all the time.

Would you prefer a system in which men are convicted on nothing but the accusation of a woman simply because it is a woman is making the accusation, even when she is shown to be less than reliable?

I've done no such thing. This comment is deeply offensive given I happen to be among the numbers of those victims - of gang rape on one of the two occasions in question - who has been disbelieved and denied justice.

That's part of my own less than unconscious bias that wanted deeply to believe Heard. And to a point, I do believe her. I also think there's something deeply wrong with a system which denies justice on the basis that an invasive physical examination hasn't been carried out, which is even less likely when the victim is also a victim of sexual abuse.

So we are left with the surrounding circumstantial evidence. The reason why rape conviction is at a completely unacceptable level is that it boils down to one person's word against another. This isn't usually the question that sex/penetration did or did not take place. It's about whether consent was given. In claims of marital rape this is even more difficult.

The issue here is that she claims she'd crawled over broken glass and been lacerated by it. The evidence doesn't support that version of events. The witness testimony and other surrounding detail of the time also doesn't square with Heard's version of events.

Do I believe she was a victim of physical violence? Yes. Sexual violence? I don't know. Do I believe she's also a liar? Yes.

I am talking about a specific event and specific evidence. This is not to 'dismiss' the experience of rape victims. Your comment was repulsive, and I think you should apologise.

That is very true. Look at the havoc that Carl Beech caused for over decade with his made up story of a Westminster pedophile ring. The primary people he accused were all ostracised for over a decade before the £2m investigation discovered Beech was lying and then prosecuted him for false accusations. One, Leon Brittan died a wrongly hated man before it was discovered it was all lies.

Was John Leslie ever convicted of anything? I know it wasn't a woman accusing him in the original case, I think someone named him as the rapist on tv and later apologised but I think it ruined John Leslie's career.

Hmm.
What do you say to the 96% of raped women who don't see any justice?
Or the three women a week killed by partners?
Or the family of women killed after reporting their abusive stalker?
It's for the greater good, can't go round having innocent men with a cloud hanging over them?

Are you so entirely lacking in empathy and imagination for someone with different genitals to yourself?
Very rude to speculate about people's genitals. You have no clue what's in my pants.

I will have more empathy for posters on here arguing about poor men, when men stop perpetuating a system that enables sexual violence against women, see above.

John Leslie has a lot of different allegations following him around, I think he's probably lost work because he's unpleasant.

However the 90s were a different time. Angus Deayton lost his TV career for being exposed doing drugs with prostitutes. Can't see that happening now.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/teen-fined-wasting-police-time-20239874.amp

Read this and tell me that the police are doing a great job protecting women

Agree emphatically with the above.

The #MenToo hashtag fills me with dismay. As if men ever didn't have the odds stacked completely in their favour; as if they did not form the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of violent offences against women. When this is seen against the #CountingDeadWomen hashtag, it's impossible to believe any progress has been made at all.

#MenToo is about as pointless a #proclamation as #AllLivesMatter. Because in the case of the dominant group with all the social, economic and cultural privilege - a privilege which doesn't as a rule keep you prisoner in your own home after dark or insist you are at fault for your own abuse - no one ever seriously suggested that they didn't.

Calls to mind that maxim that when you're privileged, equality looks like oppression.

"Hmm.
What do you say to the 96% of raped women who don't see any justice?
Or the three women a week killed by partners?
Or the family of women killed after reporting their abusive stalker?
It's for the greater good, can't go round having innocent men with a cloud hanging over them?"

1. I was talking about all prove falsely accused people, not just men and their family's who also include women and children. Do those women and children not matter?. Check you bias and don't make assumptions

1. Women victims are highly unlikely to lie. Some do, that is a fact. The system is shit on the whole.

1. Amber Heard is still a liar

I think you are being very harsh on @TiddyTidTwo. Many agree with her that AH waa abusive, including myself. It doesn't mean that JD wasn't abusive as I think he was. The problem with this case is she lied when she didn't need to, which meant she wasn't a credible witness. She damaged her own case by mentioning Kate Moss leading JD being able to bring her in as a rebuttal witness. If her testimony had been without the lies, been authentic, she probably would have won.

Others on this post (and on the other 2) are obviously conflating their own horrific experiences with this case and are therefore blindly believing AH because they see some of themselves in her. I sympathise but disagree with them. Each situation is unique and each person's reaction is unique. That's why these cases are so difficult to try. However, just because one person doesn't react a certain way doesn't mean everyone follows.

AH ultimately lost, imo, because she lacked credibility - which is her own fault. JD shouldn't be treated like a conquering hero but shouldn't be demonised either, just as AH shouldn't be demonised. They were 2 flawed people in a toxic relationship.

You know it is possible to simultaneously have an opinion that rape/murder is very bad and that false accusations are also bad? Just because false accusations is a lesser evil, that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to them.

By the way, the judge on the JD and AH case in the US was a woman so can’t always blame men for the system.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

I’m truly sorry for your experiences, but to be fair your comments had no context. There was no indication of any of the above in your original post: one can only go on your words as written on the page.

Can you see how, albeit unintentionally, it might be offensive to sex offences
survivors to declare that “evidence’” should be “compelling” in order to make a “serious accusation”?

@carolineshaw

Would you prefer a system in which men are convicted on nothing but the accusation of a woman simply because it is a woman is making the accusation, even when she is shown to be less than reliable?

I’m assuming this isn’t a serious question. Would you like to ask a more sensible one?

Or girls. Even when they're only 12.

news.sky.com/story/amp/semina-halliwell-rape-victim-12-took-her-own-life-directly-after-police-interview-her-mother-tells-sky-news-12582931

My comments had a very specific context. This related to the actual accounts and evidence from both sides presented in this case. My post made abundantly clear that I was referring to this, not broader issues surrounding the low conviction rate for sex offences in general, or the awful time that victims get in court or at the point of reporting the crime. Proving consent or otherwise is always difficult. This was not in question here - it was a straightforward 'did it or didn't it take place'. There were specific parameters of evidence in this case which presented difficulties for the jury with this question.

I don't need anyone's sympathy for my own position, thank you. It does not disqualify me from forming an objective view. And whilst you've given some interesting and persuasive food for thought throughout this series of threads, on this point you are not only being offensive but disingenuous with it. I have no intention of discussing this with you further.

@Chulainn

It doesn’t mean JD wasn’t abusive as I think he was

If you think Depp was abusive, then Heard did not defame him by saying he was. All else is irrelevant, Particularly Kate Moss which had no bearing on the case. Even Depp said of Heard that she had turned the Moss incident in her head into something it wasn’t. Ie Heard did believe her interpretation, she wasn’t intentionally falsifying the incident.

If it is a he said/she said case without much concrete evidence then it is vital that the one making the accusations is credible and doesn't lie all the time.

Of course it is, in a court system (or in any context) credibility is a factor. But you're not necessarily going to always get that because often the more vulnerable a person is the more difficult, unsympathetic or unreliable their behaviour can be. But those same individuals are statistically more likely to be victims.

Would you prefer a system in which men are convicted on nothing but the accusation of a woman simply because it is a woman is making the accusation, even when she is shown to be less than reliable?

The thing is that this was never a criminal case. The majority of rapes never get to that stage, probably a majority are never reported (not sure of the stats). The issue of rape convictions is quite separate from this case, which was for defamation.

We know the case was brought against Heard because of three statements in an op-ed, the one pertaining to sexual violence being the headline, which she didn't write - the only reference to SV in the article was about her younger years before meeting Depp. The headline doesn't really match the content of the article actually and probably should have said gender based (or sex based) violence.

So the question is whether any victim or survivor has the right to refer even obliquely to their own experiences if they don't have proof that would meet the standards of at least a civil case. And we know many many women - and men - wouldn't have that. So essentially it's a gag order. Because the alternative, that a man's reputation might be damaged (and I see that can be a horrible situation too), is worse than the alternative which is all victims being forced down the route of an invasive and horrible criminal process with an uncertain result or having to stay completely silent for the rest of their lives.

AdamRyan · Today 11:59

Hmm.
What do you say to the 96% of raped women who don't see any justice?
Or the three women a week killed by partners?
Or the family of women killed after reporting their abusive stalker?
It's for the greater good, can't go round having innocent men with a cloud hanging over them?

I would say what relevance are they to this case or the question of false accusations?

People are not their entire sex. We shouldn't simply believe all women because they are part of the class of women rather than individual women who are perfectly capable of lying and being malicious.

Or are you seriously suggesting that we lock up all accused men because on the law of averages it will only be a small number of falsely accused and to hell with them, they're just collateral damage for the greater good of womankind?

Again, I think you are a rather frightening person and I hope to God you don't have sons.

Very rude to speculate about people's genitals. You have no clue what's in my pants.

OK "Adam", whatever you say.

I will have more empathy for posters on here arguing about poor men, when men stop perpetuating a system that enables sexual violence against women, see above.

I don't care about your views of posters here but I do think your attitude to justice is unfortunate and you entirely lack empathy for anyone not of your sex (oh sorry, that's a personal mystery isn't it?).

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

With all due respect the context may have been clear in your head, it was not on the page.

Perhaps you’re unaware of how offensive your own comments may have come across in the absence of that context. With further information I can see that is not how you intended them, but that was not clear at the time.

Again, I think you are a rather frightening person and I hope to God you don't have sons.

Good grief, what a horrible comment. I'm pretty sure the poster wasn't suggesting all accusations against men result in locking up and throwing away the key. You're way out of line with this kind of personal remark.

He was certainly verbally abusive and violent to inanimate objects. He also tossed things in anger but, despite Ellen Berkin's attempt to say he threw a bottle at her in her testimony, that doesn't appear to be aimed at specific people. He may have been physically abusive, although the evidence was not clear on this as there was the issue over potential doctored photos etc. I don't think he was sexually abusive. I think the case hinged on the 'sexual abuse' aspect. If that hadn't been in the title of the op-ed, AH might have won.

However, I think a fundamental issue was she set herself up as an abuse victim in the op-ed but the trial showed she was also a perpetrator of abuse. I don't think JD thought he'd win. I think he wanted to get across that she was abusive to him. He couldn't do that in the UK case as she wasn't the defendant.

So the question is whether any victim or survivor has the right to refer even obliquely to their own experiences if they don't have proof that would meet the standards of at least a civil case. And we know many many women - and men - wouldn't have that. So essentially it's a gag order. Because the alternative, that a man's reputation might be damaged (and I see that can be a horrible situation too), is worse than the alternative which is all victims being forced down the route of an invasive and horrible criminal process with an uncertain result or having to stay completely silent for the rest of their lives.

Exactly this is the sinister repercussion of the AH/JD defamation trial for women in the US. I have a few friends who have gotten convictions of DV against their abusive ex partners and all of them are sickened by the verdict. They’ve said, they didn’t have the amount of proof that the US. Virginia judge a jury insisted on. And to be in danger of being sucessfully sued for defamation if you merely say “I was a victim of DV” without even naming your abuser as that what this case sets a precedent for is a gag order affecting all victims (men and women) of DV.

WHO CARES

IrisVersicolor · Today 12:26

Would you prefer a system in which men are convicted on nothing but the accusation of a woman simply because it is a woman is making the accusation, even when she is shown to be less than reliable?

I’m assuming this isn’t a serious question. Would you like to ask a more sensible one?

Yes, it's serious. Although it isn't what posters believe they are advocating for, it is dangerously close to their actual position.

Yes, it's serious. Although it isn't what posters believe they are advocating for, it is dangerously close to their actual position.

And your actual position appears to be "Say nothing unless you're one of the few people with an extremely high level of evidence, and even then you could be sued and lose".