FFS. Woman jailed for 8mths after retracting rape accusation

[MmeLindt]

here

The woman retracted her claims after being bullied by her husband and family.

She was then prosecuted for falsely retracting claim.

WTF?

Sumfing - interesting. That puts you wildly at odds with the British Crime Survey and the Home Office who agree that rape is wildly UNDERreported. Did you know that?

I have just read about this case on a news website and then logged in here as I knew that other mnetters would be sharing my utter outrage at this.

Surely the woman's lawyers will be appealing this? How can it be allowed to happen?

She was the victim of domestic abuse including rape, once out of the relationship she experienced further intimidation from her abuser and his family yet she is the one imprisoned???

And we slag off Libya for imprisoning rape victims?

It's getting discussed on TWS just now.

What did they say on TWS, or do I not want to know? Careful with my blood pressure

Would be interested to hear what they said as well.

Is Cbeebies round these parts I don't think they'll be picking up on this story!

This is one of the most awful things I have read for a long time. It makes me feel sick and choked with helpless anger. I don't know what to do. What can we do? Is there any campaign for this woman that we can click to support?

Can you imagine the awful drip-drip erosion of this woman that might have contributed to her retraction of the allegation? And all that she might look to to preserve her strength in the face of it turns on her in this way.

I started to type angrily that that those intimidating her should be arrested and charged which would leave the way clear for her to be honest in court.

I was going by what was being said here, but when I read the article it doesn't say intimidated it says emotionally blackmailed by saying things like "oh but the poor man will go to prison"

That certainly isn't fair, but calling it intimidation is unfair on those who really have been.

Then I read that this is her husband and that she has had consensual relations with him since then. I think there can be times when it is rape if a husband forces himself on his wife, but if she liked it enough to go back after for more this is making a mockery of every real victim.

I don't know about the court's motivation to punish her this much when they can't find prison space for violent criminals, but she just made it harder for the next victim so deserves something.

Your comments revolt me onager.

Do you know what emotional blackmail is onager? Do you know what 'consensual sex' might mean in the context of an abusive marriage? Do you know how a person can be worn to a fragment of themselves by the persistant abusive behaviour of a person they share a house with? Do you know that the police habitually acknowledge the immense pressures on women to retract complaints of rape and violence perpetrated by husbands/partners?

It is people like you who time and time again let rapists off in court.

You don;t think that someone who has been multiply beaten and raped might be more vulnerable to intimidation than someone who has not suffered those things?

You think that if a woman stays with a man who has raped her, it negates the rape? Does that apply to the beatings as well? It is well recorded that women who are subject to these things will often stay, and continue a relationship. In fact it is quite usual for women to look for sex after rape, in a cockeyed attempt to regain some control.

She has not made it harder for further victims. The court have sent out a message to rape victims about how they will be treated by our legal system.

Is she in prison now? Possibly you can write to people in prison? A whole sheaf of "I believe you" letters?

Intimidation - would you not include emotional blackmail in that? I would.

As to the fact that she had sex with him after reporting the rapes, that is not so unusual. Emotionally and physically abused wives find it incredibly difficult to escape from their abusers, particulary when they have little support. You only have to look at some of the threads on relationship topic.

The judge believed her though, didn't he. It seems to be accepted that he raped her, and so she has been sent to prison. It's a "false retraction" ie she had told the truth, but then said she hadn't, which was a lie, and for that she is in prison.

Does anyone know what happened to the man?

Eleision l
If you would like to write about this, I would be happy to post it on my blog. You could guest write a post. You are so eloquent, Perhaps we could get a bit of a protest movement going

ISNT Oh I expected nothing less from you than revulsion. I can't take you very seriously.

Anyone else who thinks I am totally wrong might try finding a woman who has been beaten half to death in an alley and then raped and telling HER that this is exactly the same as this and see if she agrees.

Prison is wrong, but a punishment of some kind is appropriate.

Yes, it is surreal beyond words that the grounds of her imprisonment include a definitive statement from the judicial process of the man's guilt. It has been judicially acknowledged that she was raped and yet an eight-month prison sentence seems like a wilful dismissal of the psychological consequences of her ill-treatment, which are likely to include difficulty in resisting intimidation from him. The judicial process normally acknowledges that difficulty in a number of ways, and yet here it is just punishing the victim for her vulnerability.

sorry, x-posts. Onager it isn't the same as being beaten in an alley, but for fuck's sake who says that all vicious manipulations of others had to be the same.

onagar...do you believe in the concept of rape within marriage ?

rape is most commonly carried about by someone we know and often trust

your scenario of woman dragged into alley, beaten and raped is actually not at all common in comparison to the above

you might find it useful to do some research into abusive relationships, and just how many times an abusive woman will go back...to normalise, to rationalise, to try and understand why she has given her life to a man who can be nice, sometimes

some women have also been manoevred into being so dependent on their relationship...emotionally, financially etc that they see no way out

Good idea for you to do a blog on it Mme. I'm sure you would do a v eloquent job. I looked at the news story for clues on how to indicate support for the woman, but of course the protection of her privacy makes this hard.

this woman made a cry for help that has backfired spectacularly

the only positive in this I can see is if she does spend time behind bars, she may finally get free of him

what a godawful price to pay, though

Thousands of women are raped every week when men decide that it is fine to stick their penis into unwilling women. Personally I don't think that it makes it any less of a rape if it happens in a four poster bed with gold draperies, or in a deserted park in the mud. Both are rape. One might be rape plus threats to kill, or rape plus GBH, but the severity of one does not make the other "less serious". That attitude is callous and a bit ridiculous. Is someone stabbed to death in their own living room less "murdered" than if they'd been killed in an alley? WTF?

And lovely casual slagging off of ISNT there - that's necessary is it?

elephants, yes

I wondered if there was a backstory between onagar and ISNT...weird comment even if there is

AnyFucker, yeah as I said I do think there can be such a thing as rape within marriage.
Mostly I would think it would end the marriage, but yes I know it's not always as easy as that for some people. Still I just hate to see it portrayed as just as bad.

Maybe I'm not making enough allowances for family pressure etc because I'm so independent, but pressure doesn't excuse breaking the law in any other context and perverting the course of justice is a crime.

The judge can't say (and surely we wouldn't want him to) "you are a woman so can't help what you did".

I do think a prison sentence is over the top and of course what I'd really like is a perfect lie detector to sort out who did what and make them pay.

I wrote a long post but actually I can't be bothered.

Anyone who thinks that rape victims play "oneupmanship" about their attacks is deluded.

Anyone who thinks that a woman acknowledged to have been raped, brutalised and intimidated deserves to be sent to prison is a disgrace.