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?

That's a ridiculous statement, we are discussing bail as a concept not the matter of how terrible rape is.

I am, actually, terribly bothered about false accusations about anything. However, I am more bothered about false accusations of rape, as I said, because of the problems that they cause for real victims. They do have a horrible impact on anyone falsely accused, but I'm really very worried because the existence of false accusations means that all rape victims are put under suspicion. You don't tend to find your integrity in question if you've been burgled (although I guess some people must fake it for the insurance money), but rape victims find their own integrity up for debate as standard. That is absolutely awful and any false accusation made in spite contributes to the problem. That's what troubles me about false accusations.

I can (maybe) accept a man being allowed out on bail if charged with 1 count of rape, no history of violence - maybe a 'date rape' case?

But I was unfortunate enough to be in a position to see the charge sheets against this man and, trust me, assuming there was good evidence of all the charges, there was a definite history of violence and rape against the victim spanning approx 12 months....surely that in itself should have been enough for the judge to realise that he was a danger?

Also, the argument about men's lives being ruined if falsely accused of rape - this man was allowed out on bail and still lost his job so what difference would it have made if he was in prison...oh yes, the nurse would still be alive

yeah, I have no problem with this man's life being ruined, but I'd hate to put in place a system that assumes guilt.

In this case, surely it was up to the prosecution to properly argue for keeping him on remand as there was more than sufficient evidence to suggest that he was an immediate danger. Surely the debate should be about this?

I don't think it's fair to make a snap judgement based on a single case and apply it across the board.

So are the family suing the prosecutor (or whoever it was) in this case for not making the case against bail competently? And why was their no appeal made against bail once granted? There's a lot of talk of 'the system' letting the victim down but it sounds increasingly as though there was negligence in preparation of the case..

"the existence of false accusations means that all rape victims are put under suspicion. You don't tend to find your integrity in question if you've been burgled (although I guess some people must fake it for the insurance money), but rape victims find their own integrity up for debate as standard."

Poorlyconstructed, given that the percentage of false rape allegations is as far as we know, exactly the same as the percentage of false burglary allegations, why do you think that rape victims find their own integrity up for debate as standard, but burglary victims don't?

Do you really think it's because of fales allegations? Because if so, why aren't the same standards applied to burglary victims?

PLEASE stop repeating these rape myths. The reason rape victims integrity is routinely questioned and burglary victims aren't, even though burglary victims are just as likely to be lying, is pure and simple mysogyny. Oh, and 85% of burglaries don't go unreported, just to put in context the effect of routinely disbelieving rape victims.

Jack Tweedy
Paul Weller
Roman Polanski

To say nothing of all the men who obviously committed rape but never even got accused, because the girls or women who they raped either didn't recognise that they were raped, or knew that no-one else would see it as rape.

All those footballers

None of them with ruined lives

Most rapists are hailed as victims. Most rape victims are condemned as liars.

"If it's a choice between men's ruined lives and women's lost lives I'll take the ruined lives as a lesser evil than women being exterminated."

That's good of you, but you're not the
one being threatened with being locked up.
You'd ok with your husband going down for the 6 to 9 months it takes to come to trial ? Knowing he'd done nothing wrong ?
The fact is that those names you can roll off the tongue were all found not guilty and yet you still associate them with rape.

You don't know anything about these people, how it's affected them personally and they didn't kill anyone.
One nut case did and for that you'd have everyone accused of rape incarcerated with all that entails and implies, it's hysterical over reaction.
The only person to blame for that woman's death is the man who committed the crime.
My friend was attacked not raped but hurt and the police bent over backwards to help her bring him to justice and he was rightly convicted but if crimes aren't reported what on earth do you expect them to do ?

Why do you think they aren't reported Mamatomany?

I would rather my son served prison time for a crime he didn't commit, than that my daugher was murdered.

Or vice versa.

Would you really ? I'm not happy for either of those situations to occur actually and hope neither do.
Because neither have to.

It is not the best source but the Wikipedia summary of the grounds on which bail is given show that Judges have considerable scope to assess the risk in granting bail.

"Any person accused of committing a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Therefore a person charged with a crime, should not be denied freedom unless there is a good reason.

The main reasons for refusing bail are that the defendant is accused of an imprisonable offence and there are substantial grounds for believing that the defendant would:

1.Abscond
2.Commit further offences whilst on bail
3.Interfere with witnesses[5]
The court should take into account the:

1.Nature and seriousness of the offence or default (and the probable method of dealing with the defendant for it)
2.Character, antecedents, associations and community ties of the defendant,
3.Defendant's bail record, and
4.Strength of the evidence[5]"

Where evidence is not strong and no previous convictions or charges then it seems reasonable to grant bail to men accused of rape. Where evidence is strong and previous convictions or charges have occured the risk would be far higher and bail would likely not be granted.

Given these criteria, I am therefore unclear what grounds it was granted in this case.

I think it is possible for a fair and reasonable society to be both concerned about men being falsely accused of rape and their lives ruined and at the same time having a duty to protect victims. The job of judges is to use their judgement in witholding or granting bail and hence to express society's dual concerns about treating accused and victims fairly.

It is not a simple black-and-white question about whether men accused of rape should be granted bail or not.

It requires judges to judge.

HerBeatitude the fact that you seem to think the system is so prejudice can't help, things aren't perfect i'm sure but the days of women not being believed are long gone.
We walked into the police station to report what had happened with my friend and all hell broke loose to catch him, sirens blaring, evidence sealed and he was in custody within 12 hours. I've no reason to believe that isn't the case for every woman that reports a violent crime.

Dittany you do women no favors at all with your responses.