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?

sorry that happened to you, SF, and I agree with everything you say

there is no rape "top trumps"

it's all part of the sick male-entitlement culture

and women who go along with it, need to look very closely at why they do that

Excellent post StayFrosty. Sorry for what happened to you but at speaking out against this rape hierarchy bollocks.

So sorry that you have personal experience of this, StayFrosty.

Have blogged about it and will get it out on twitter.

The only potential silver lining here is that perhaps, just perhaps, going to prison may help this woman.. perhaps if she is taken away from the situation and sees that the pressures brought to bear on her weren't brought on her abusers when she was faced with a jail term it will give her an opportunity to reflect on how fucked up the whole thing is and try to find a way out.

But I doubt it .

Well she might have a Kickass moment and use her time in prison to train her body to peak physical fitness and learn how to fire a gun, before emerging on a mission of vengeance to find and destroy all those who keep the rape culture going.

Or start the new all-female militia?

Sorry for your awful experience StayFrosty, and thank you very much for speaking about it here.

How typical of the 'justice' system to send a victim of abuse to the most abusive environment possible- jail. If paedophiles get away with community sentences how on earth can this woman be given a custodial?
The police/ CPS should be more concerned with how a victim was able to be pressured like this, perhaps they should invest more into protecting victims.
Mind you it's not long ago women were frequently imprisoned for not keeping up with their TV license payments so it doesn't suprise me that much.

awful, truly awful, LG

how our justice system (which is supposed to be one of the best in the world) cannot protect women

That is horrible, LG.

It makes me so angry that women are left so defenseless, no support or understanding.

Good post, Len. That poor woman. Damned if you don't testify, dead if you do. :(

I've been thinking just how often these partner/wife killings happen at a time connected with the justice/legal system. Before a divorce is granted for instance. The day before a custody hearing. Prior to them testifying against the man. On release from prison having threatened to kill her (R fucking Moat, who only nearly killed her and got the boyfriend instead). These things are actually pretty predictable. They are even in the fucking diary.

BBC picked up on it

"Detective Inspector Ian Andrews added: "I would like to reassure the public that Dyfed-Powys Police, in line with national requirements, treat, and will continue to treat, all allegations of sexual assaults seriously; this involves the use of specially trained officers to support victims during what is a traumatic experience.

"I would encourage victims of sexual assaults to contact the police and not suffer in silence."

Yeah, right. After that court case, I would not be surprised if reported rapes fell.

The BBC piece reports the comments of the judge, which make it clear that women who decide they cannot go through with the court process will face jail.

Mind-boggling.

Why is this happening so much at the moment?

Every day there is a report of a woman being jailed for years for false rape claims - how long do people go to prison for if they falsely report other crimes?

There are women in prison who have maintained that they were telling the truth all along and have still been jailed for lying, with no definitive evidence that they are lying,

And now we have the fact that if you can't face the court case (something that is very common) you face jail as well.

No to mention that every false rape claim gets acres of coverage, while genuine ones are hardly reported, giving a false impression that women lie about it all the time. Whose interests does it serve to exercise that bias? Why do the press exercise that bias?

I've wondered about these false rape claims. How do they know it's definitely false, does the woman confess or is there firm evidence? TBH, I have no problem with a woman who makes a true false rape claim going to prison - just worried how they determine it.

No idea how it is decided, surely most cases are his word against hers?

The Guardian is reporting that the group Women Against Rape will be releasing a guide to advise women who have been raped. Going by the posts on the thread, "Would you report a rape", I am not sure how much help it would be.

either they get her to sign something saying she made it up or there is a bit of evidence that makes them think 'oh she definitely can't have been raped', eg she is seen kissing him afterwards.
(and never mind the fact that rape victims often behave in ways you wouldn't expect....)

It's decided on the same guidlines and standard of proof as perjury or obstructing the course of justice as far as I can recall.
It's a tough enough thing to prove.

The interesting thing is that in a study I read it said that the small proportion of rape claims that were not true were most often made by people who were mentally ill, and further they did not tend to identify any actual person, as that wasn't the point of what they were doing.

If that is the case, and a person makes a non-specific claim (it was dark I couldn't see who it was) because they are mentally ill, is it appropriate to jail them?

It also seems that the women usually go to jail protesting their innocence, rather than because they say they were lying. Given the burden of proof is so difficult to prove someone was raped, it seems to be easier to prove someone wasn't IYSWIM.

Certainly there are women in prison where charities believe there has been a miscarriage of justice, so the evidence in those cases can't be conclusive IYSWIM.

I am also interested in how people who make other false claims are treated - do they go to prison?

"If that is the case, and a person makes a non-specific claim (it was dark I couldn't see who it was) because they are mentally ill, is it appropriate to jail them?"

It depends. there's a big difference between mental illness and legal definitions of insanity.
Also as many have pointed out on here there is a huge spectrum of mental illness. But on the face of it (and in practice I can not see the logic) if a person has made a flase statement against no person in particular as a direct result of a mental illness I'd see no value in jailing them.

"It also seems that the women usually go to jail protesting their innocence, rather than because they say they were lying."

I'm not sure I follow what you mean here. Do you mean that the majority of women specifically jailed in cases relating to a false accusation of rape?
I'd imagine a lot of people and most rapists go to jail protesting their innocence so would not take that as any indication. In fact surely anyone who pleads not guilty to a charge does so.

"Given the burden of proof is so difficult to prove someone was raped, it seems to be easier to prove someone wasn't IYSWIM"

I'm also not sure I follow here, so excuse me if I've interpreted wrongly. It's not an automatic case of if you prove the woman wasn't raped in a legal sense that it proves she was lying.
The standard would be the same as for proving a rape, i.e. beyond a reasonable doubt. As such you'd have to prove their guilt with regards to perjury or obstructing the course of justice.

Yes I mean that most of the cases I have read of women being jailed for making false accusations, have not been prosecuted after admitting they were lying. Most have continued with their story. I agree that it is usual for people who are guilty to lie - it's just interesting to me that in this crime, the justice system and the public say it is hard to prosecute rape as it's really hard to prove. But the frequency of women going to jail for false accusations seems to be quite high, without any stats it's hard to know, but there can't be that many cases (given the rate of false accusations is similar to other crimes) so it feels that they are usually being found guilty IYSWIM. I feel like I am reading about 2 of these cases a week, which given the low flase reporting rate seems quite high IYSWIM.

It's a shame there are no stats. I have tried to find out how many women are imprisoned every year for this, and how many people are jailed for falsely reporting other crimes, but I can't.