Benjamin Mandy- does a high profile trial without conviction deter victims?

[mids2019]

Benjamin Mandy (Man City footballer) has been found not guilty of counts of rape.

I perfectly I understand due process and burden of proof in the criminal prosecution system but in cases like this do we need to explore why the GPS couldn't secure a conviction? The CPS must have spent considerable time and money putting together the case and obviously the women have been brave to go through a trial so why the not guilty verdict?

I do not want to see innocent men jailed but on the other hand high profile failures to secure convictions for this type of crime can only act to deter victims coming forward as it shows what a high bar there is to achieve justice.

Are we not supposed to believe he is not guilty? That CPS failed to secure a conviction because he is innocent?

I haven't followed the details. I'd think that a not guilty verdict empowers pushy men, rather than warning them against bad behaviour.

@pickledandpuzzled

It's the distinction between innocent and not guilty isn't it? The burden of proof to obtain a beyond reasonable doubt conviction must be high and I think in a lot of circumstances difficult to obtain. The CPS must have been confident in the women's evidence to bring this about. A not guilty verdict though portrays the women as vexatious claimants and so adds more trauma to their experience? I think the press have to not be to sympathetic about the man's ordeal in facing a trial as there must have been really quite significant evidence initially for the case to proceed.

The concern is if there is a repeat allegation of another high profile person committing rape the CPS may be more reluctant spending resource on the prosecution given the incredibly scant resources at their disposal?

It is really concerning.

But if we don't accept it, then why bother with a trial? Just let the CPS decide if he did it and save the money.

I mean there have been famous miscarriages of justice, where later scientific techniques prove the wrong person was convicted.

Honestly I don't know. In an ideal world I'd actually go with the CPS deciding. But it's not an ideal world and government can't be trusted.

I think it's one of those 'least worst' scenarios.

In an ideal world, men would only enjoy sex where there was enthusiastic consent.

I don't think there is any easy answer and I am a firm believer in justice and the judicial system. In this case have the CPS made a mistake or overestimated the weight of evidence. It is probably one of these cases that in a civil court where the burden of proof is lower there may have been some success.

I just feel this kind of case deters women from coming forward to report crimes of this nature as consent is so hard to prove/disprove.

I see why you might be worried and I do think it’s an issue, but I think CPS has to pursue as though it were any other case.

With celebrity prosecutions it’s really difficult to give victims a fair shake as juries tend to believe celebrities more than they do regular people. But should your crime be less likely to be pursued just because you were victimized by a celebrity? That wouldn’t be in keeping with the Justice systems mandate to be fair to all.

They are supposed to prosecute when there is a reasonable chance of conviction. At the moment they veer towards certainty with conviction rates at (IIRC) around 70%, but that mandate could reasonably support anything over a 50% conviction rate.

I haven’t followed this case at all, so I don’t know any specifics, but in general, losing a case doesn’t mean anything the CPS did went seriously wrong, the outcome will depend on who the jury believe and the standards they apply to the evidence. And there’s the issue again of how celebrity might impact things and the problems with fairness that taking that into account could cause.

His name is Benjamin Mendy

Unfortunately, it isn’t a case of innocence or guilt. It is a case of proved guilty or found not guilty.

Not guilty is not the same as being innocent.

There always needs to be a certain burden of proof in a criminal case and, unfortunately, in rape cases the burden of proof is hard to establish because of the nature if the crime frequently taking place behind closed doors. So often it becomes he said/she said.

Those are very general comments - I don’t know the details of this case at all.

It would take a close study of the evidence and the trial to form a view on where “not guilty” was on the scale from total absolution to OJ levels of getting away with it. I can’t be bothered doing that study and I doubt many others in the court of public opinion can be either.

So if someone is not guilty then they’re not guilty. Throwing the “doesn’t mean they didn’t do it” shade and the implication that there needs to be some other kind of public judgement and retribution to the benefit of future cases seems like a dark road.

Arguably there is supposed to be a case with a fighting chance for the CPS to take it forward. But who can be sure Kiers old crew don’t push the boundaries to make statements, be that due to the nature of the crime or the profile of the accused? Or that the long term welfare of the accuser / victim is collateral damage in pursuit of a goal?

The idea of leaving it to the CPS to judge based on the idea that they must have achieved the burden to get it to trial in the first place makes me shudder. As does the rather upside down idea that one of the most serious crimes you can be accused of should have a lower burden of proof.

Does this highlight the reason for the low conviction rates for sexual crimes which are periodically highlighted in the press?

The burden of proof may be quite high reasonably for these crimes but if a case is one word against another then realistically how many can be brought to trial?

I would take a slight issue with 'not guilty' equals innocence as all has been shown is that there isn't sufficient proof for guilt (beyond reasonable doubt). The court of public opinion may be relevant in these cases as the immoral behaviour may be of interest?

You are left with such cases with the women involved feeling that justice hasn't been achieved and also there is the malign assumption that if the accused is not guilty then they must have lied. Indeed would the wealthy footballer if innocent not want to sue the accusers for defamation?

OP, you might be interested in a recent case in Australia which has highlighted a number of these issues.

One issue in particular is that the case has been referred to by the complainant’s name rather than the defendant’s name. That wouldn’t happen in many other cases!

Google Brittany Higgins. Two parliamentary work colleagues went out for drinks with other colleagues after work and then they went back to parliament where the alleged rape happened in a ministerial office. CCTV shows them arriving. CCTV shows Bruce Lehrmann leaving less than an hour later. Brittany Higgins was later found asleep and naked on a couch in the minister’s private office.

Because it was in parliament, a security issue was raised and two days later Brittany Higgins told her boss that she had been raped. Bruce Lehrmann left or lost his job. She remained employed. More than a year later, she went the press (TV and print) to tell her story and then to the police. It has been acknowledged that the timing was politically motivated to get the most possible attention and damage the government. The press was supposedly anonymous but Bruce Lehrmann was easily identified.

The police did not want to press charges but were pressured by the CPS equivalent to do so. The case went to court and was thrown out due to juror misconduct. The prosecution decided against a retrial because of Brittany Higgins mental health.

Bruce Lehrmann is now suing various outlets for defamation. I’ve assumed that he wasn’t able to sue Brittany Higgins directly but I am not sure.

Nobody but those two know what actually happened in the minister’s office that night.

Short version - it is a shit show all around and the proceedings around the investigation and court case are being investigated too.

I agree there are so many nuances to this problem. Do you think though given the difficulty of getting prosecutions the police and CPS can be excused for only pursuing a minority of sexual assault claims?.Do you think women should be warned that the grim reality is that you really need convincing evidence to secure a conviction against an alleged perpetrator so actually the additional trauma of approaching police and getting into an investigation stream may not actually be in their interests and may actually exacerbate the trauma? I really don't think there are easy answers but a glib trotting out of low assault conviction rates doesn't give solutions and maybe the law is acting as it should?

I wonder if all female jurys may help 🤷 as though there may be arguments of bias women may have a more fully rounded empathy with the alleged victim than men and if men are in a jury room are women jurors more likely to be less forthcoming about extremely intimate matters?

In my (ever so humble) opinion

• there should be restrictions on media reporting around rape cases to ensure both victim and defendant are anonymous until after conviction (Brittany Higgins shot herself in the foot here)
• all allegations of rape and sexual assault should be FULLY investigated by a specialist team (my preference would be a heavily female dominated team)
• I’m not convinced jurors should be all female but I could be persuaded investigative teams should be
• victims should be counselled by both police and CPS as to the realistic likelihood of conviction to minimise further trauma
• victims should be able to have more influence on the decision whether or not to prosecute to help their own trauma
• there should be limits on the level of background investigation/questioning of victims (eg the age victim lost virginity is not relevant to a 60 year old victim’s allegation of ‘date rape’) again to limit retraumatising the victim
• EVERY crime associated with a rape should be prosecuted without fail. For example, the rape itself is a crime, but so is the violence that went with it - threatening with a weapon, physical assault of a punch or slap, abduction or deprivation of liberty, intimidation, torture. EVERYTHING should be separately charged and prosecuted.

With regards to my last point - this is the only way to achieve a proper understanding of ‘rape is rape’. There are not different shades of rape. One is not better or worse than another. ‘Date rape’ isn’t less bad because the victim had drinks with her attacker first than ‘stranger rape’ when she was abducted from the street and tortured as well.

Rape is rape and all associated crimes should be prosecuted as well.