Should someone who has been charged with rape be freed on bail?

[spookyskeleton]

Just been reading this story about a man who had been charged with several counts of rape against his partner, subsequently released on bail and then he murdered her .

I do think that there seems to be a difference between this kind of rape and the 'stranger' rape as I can't imagine someone who raped a stranger in a park, for example, being released on bail...whilst the man in the news story was probably not a danger to the general public, but he was clearly a danger to his ex-partner.

What do you think?

Depends on the individual case doesn't it, if he's assessed and deemed not to be a risk what can you do ?
I must say I'm surprised he did get bailed as I've also seen bail refused for stupid reasons.

you still haven't explained why the false allegation in your area is relevant to this case.

the man in this case shouldn't have been deemed not to be a risk; the question is how on earth this bad decision came to be made.

It's relevant because miscarriages of justice are avoided on the basis of presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
Sentences are handed down afterwards not before and remand is the same if not worse than prison from what I have been told. At least once people have been convicted the prison service starts to work on their rehabilitation, on remand they are just left in no mans land.
To turn it onto you would you like to be accused of a crime and be locked up knowing you've done nothing wrong just on the off chance ?

I would rather be locked up for 6 months than murdered. So I don't understand why your concern for victims of false allegations is so much greater than your concern for victims of rape and murder.

I'd hazard a guess that it's because victims of false allegations are male and victims of murder are female and as a society we've all been conditioned to believe that male suffering is more pitiable, more important and more unacceptable than female suffering - even when female suffering is obviously worse, as in being murdered vs being falsely accused.

It's not an either or situation though is it ? One is the victim and one is the criminal, a person wrongly imprisoned is another victim, sure of a lesser crime but again not the point.
It's not a case of sympathy it really isn't.

I'd be really uncomfortable with denying bail to everyone charged with any crime. People are innocent until proven guilty. Being locked up on remand will lose someone their job and screw their life up (even more than being charged with rape would), and that's a terrible thing for people who are innocent. Much as I wish this weren't the case, false accusations are sometimes made and it's up to the courts to decide.

I understand the concern for victims, and that's definitely something courts should take into consideration in making their decision, but I think what you're suggesting would be a very dangerous step.

Incidentally, I am incredibly troubled by the fact that a small number of people are willing to make false accusations. It's such a terrible thing to do and makes it so much more difficult for victims of rape to be believed. I'm sure it must be rare, but it has such a devastating effect in the accused and, perhaps more importantly, all those who end up feeling further victimised by a system that assumes they may be lying.

That's rubbish HerBeatitude.
I'm not suggesting for a moment they are equal, but neither are acceptable.

Apart from anything else where would we put all these accused people, the prisons are apparently bursting at the seams already.

PC - are you terribly bothered about the false allegations of burglary as well?

Because the figures for false allegations of rape and burglary/ car theft are about the same.

The thing that makes rape victims difficult to believe, is not the fact that a tiny minority of women lie about it, but that society believes that the majority of rape allegations are false: we are conditioned to believe that women lie about rape, when what we know is, that men lie about it: they say they didn't rape women, when they did. The vast majority of rape cases are not reported. Some police forces estimate that 85% of rapes are not reported. The most conservative estimate I've seen, is that about 60% of rapes aren't reported. Whereas the number of false allegations of rape, is something in the region of 2-6%. Are you more bothered by the 4ish % of false allegations or the 60-85% of non-reported rape, because women know they won't be believed, because literally as soon as rape is mentioned, "false allegation" is also mentioned in the same breath, as if it is a huge big issue. It isn't - no more than for the false allegation of any other crime.

Do you think that's because of the way society regards a burglar v's a rapist by any chance ?
I cannot think of anything worse that you could accuse somebody of besides murder.

I disagree mamatomany, I don't think society thinks rapists are awful at all.

Obviously, they think that rapists who lurk in bushes and drag women down dark alleys and rape them and beat them up are bad, or break into their houses and beat them up and rape them are bad, but since well over 90% of rapists don't do that, most rapists are regarded as unfortunate men who had communication difficulties or were unfairly accused by vicious mad women who don't know their own minds. The vast majority of rapists are not even considered rapists - everyone around them goes into denial that they are, even when they are found guilty in many cases.

Poorlyconstructed, you have a very touching concern for the small number of victims of false accusation. I wonder why you are so much more bothered about them than about the victims of rape, the vast, vast majority of whom never receive justice. This is by far the bigger social problem. It is many times more likely to affect you and your children than a false rape allegation.

You say 'I think what you're suggesting would be a very dangerous step. '
Please would you clarify exactly what you think I am (or HerBeatitude is) suggesting, because I would like to make sure you are arguing with something I have actually said. Otherwise you are just arguing with a straw man, which is a distraction from the main point of a thread, which is that an obviously very violent man was allowed out on bail despite the good evidence that he was a very real danger to the woman he was threatening. Unfortunately the evidence was right, he was a danger, and he killed her. Mamatomany seems, from her posts, to think this was acceptable because false allegations are so terrible that you shouldn't lock someone up until they have been found guilty even if you have reason to think they might kill someone.
(quote: 'But it's not ok to go around locking people up on the off chance of what they might do on the basis of what they've been accused of.')

I would be concerned in general with the idea of people being locked up on remand for every crime with no possibility of bail. But this does sound like an appalling fuck up by the judge, when a very dangerous man was left at liberty.

'I would be concerned in general with the idea of people being locked up on remand for every crime with no possibility of bail.'

yeah but no-one is suggesting this! Mamatomany seems to have said the opposite, that no-one should be locked up until they have actually been found guilty.
Which seems like a pretty bloody dangerous point of view to me, given that what happens in real life is somewhere in between - they assess whether the person is likely to be dangerous. And in this case erred on the side of freedom for the obviously violent man and hence death for the woman.

I disagree mamatomany, I don't think society thinks rapists are awful at all.

Again most right minded people will tell you that's rubbish.

Well yes, most people will tell me that is rubbish mama, but they won't put forward any convincing arguments as to why it is rubbish. Most people will also tell me that false allegations of rape are a really really serious issue and the main reason why it's so difficult to get a conviction.

And they are wrong.

I very much doubt if a woman had been arrested for torturing a man and then released on bail and went back to murder him, nobody would mention the words 'false allegation' or question the rights and wrongs of bail, would they? Course not.

SGB I think most of us would agree with you; no-one wants to see everyone accused of a crime locked up and as mamatomany points out, there isn't room anyway. We're merely arguing that the long established convention of locking up people who are either likely to do a flit from justice, or who are accused of very heinous crimes and in danger of committing other serious crimes, should be refused bail.

Which isn't that controversial a postition really. Most of the police, legal profession and other people in the Criminal Justic System agree with us.

I think what is needed is not so much a change in the law (which basically says; people who have been charged but not convicted can be released on bail unless they are a danger to the public or likely to fuck off to the other side of the world) but continuing efforts to educate farty old white posh male judges about the specific risks associated with domestic violence perpetrators and victims of sexual assault and rape.

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with the principles of the bail law - what is wrong, is the complete lack of knowledge and interest in DV and rape by those in the CJ system, which prevents the law from being properly applied. And of course, the reason there is no knowledge or interest in DV and rape in the CJ system, is simply because those in that system are drawn from wider society, where there is no interest or knowledge in DV or rape, because there is no real belief in the value of women's lives.

because there is no real belief in the value of women's lives

You don't really believe that surely ?

The standard argument against that, Madam, is that judges would then hand down rulings that were politically popular rather than being strict interpretations of the law. I think it's problematic either way, but I don't think elections are the answer - after all, our elected politicians want to go further than refusing bail and preserve the anonymity of accused rapists!

Mamatomany, I have read more concern from you for one accused man on this thread than for the millions of raped women. You haven't expressed any concern for the murdered woman. Why would I not believe that you think male lives have more value?