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?

I think there is more to this case then we are being told.

this case confuses me, because I don't understand how we can tell what basis she was convicted on. Was it on the basis that the original report of rape was false? or the retraction? If the latter, how do we know the retraction was false if the rpaist hasn't been tried and convicted? If we're just accpeting her word for it and therefore we accept she was raped, how is that not substantial mitigation justifying a non-custodial sentence?

Yes, this is the crux of the matter.

If she was convicted for falsely retracting the rape accusation then she was saying that it did take place. And by charging and convicting her for this the court is saying that it did take place, otherwise it would not be the false retraction that she would be convicted of. How this can be, when her husband was not convicted?

Vixel
Why do you say that?

The issues surrounding the fact that women frequently withdraw from rape prosecutions, what this means for them, that bothers me.

What is the merit in sending someone who you accept has suffered terrible abuse to prison? Which is what this accepts, in her prosecution for "false retraction".

I guess that when people refuse to testify in cases they can be done for perverting the course of justice.

It seems terribly harsh to imprison a rape victim on that basis.

I guess the message is "don't report a rape unless you are 100% certain that you will see it through to the end". That would help the police's stats a lot I think?

I say that because it doesn't seem obvious to me what basis she was convicted on although I am something of a legal dunce.

The things I have read say that first she reported the rape. Then later on after pressure from his family she said she didn't want to proceed. She was then told that she wasn't allowed to do that, and then she withdrew her accusation (said she had lied). Later on again she was prosecuted for this "false retraction" which seems peculiar as if her retraction was false then her original complaint was true ie she had been a victim of DV and rape. But at the end of it she is in prison and the man is not. I don't know whether she has any children, who will be caring for them etc.

One of the cases linked to earlier, the woman was pg and they waited until she had given birth and her baby a month old before removing her from her baby by imprisoning her. That conviction appears to be on the basis that she didn't behave how rape victims are supposed to behave, rather than hard evidence that she was lying.

It's all very and makes me nervous. The fact that these are always reported while rape convictions are not also increases hostility towards rape victims in the public i think.

swc so is there no benefit in women reporting assaults to the police but saying they don't want to take it further - so that they can maybe link reports together and realise that they have a predator in their area?

Is there really many women in prison for these false allegations? I've read a few cases where they were judged to be false but haven't seen if they went to prison. I was under the impression it wasn't that many. I think a false allegation of rape is particularly nasty - more so than theft, assault etc IMO. Problem is what evidence do they consider to reach the 'false allegation' decision - I really doubt it all comes down to the witness talking or kissing the accused after the alleged rape - maybe I'm being naive. I know people judge on these things harshly in a rape trial but wouldn't have thought that was enough to condemn a woman to prison over a false allegation.

That is very possible swc. You would almost imagine that the press had an axe to grind but that would be paranoid

I am interested in the business about not reporting if you're not going to prosecute. Is there really no merit / no point?

Begony
A false accusation of rape is nasty. But rape is much nastier. And only an estimated 3% of rape accusations are false. Considering how many women do not report rape, that number is likely lower.

I don't know if false rape accusation trials are increasing, or just being reported more in the press so that it appears it happens more.

It's just there's a parallell thread at the moment "would you report a rape" and most people are saying no, some have said they would report but not want to prosecute - so that the police would have the details of the assault to link to others and maybe see patterns etc, but not actually have to go through court.

So really in your view as a ex legal person, there's not much point? Do you think that the police would not take it seriously if you said from teh start you didn't want it investigated?

That is the message of the other thread. So many posters have said that, given the low conviction rate and the chance that the accuser can end up being prosecuted for "crying rape", they would not report a rape.

Even if the rapist is charged, that information is not used against him in a subsequent trial if he were to rape again.

The incentive to report rape is very very low.

It is used in sentencing though I think?

I believe so, but the question is if it actually gets that far.

I must admit that I always thought it was worthwhile telling the police even if you didn't want them to pursue it IYSWIM.

Thinking more though, the purpose of the police is to provide a deterrant to those thinking of committing a crime, and to investigate and solve crimes that have been committed, gather evidence and make an arrest.

Accepting reports from people who don't actually want to prosecute isn't really a part of their remit, is it.

I'll have to admit I think there is more to this than meets the eye.

With the amount of times she seems to have changed her story I'm not sure what to believe.

The police might be able to investigate more rapes with the time she took up changing her story.

Did people see this article? I see Women Against Rape are launching a new self help guide on getting justice.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/09/women-drop-rape-allegations

This story makes me sick in my heart. Is there a campaign somewhere does anyone know?

I agree to an extent that in cases such as acquaintance (especially date rape) that I would save myself the bother but might try and get revenge in other ways - terrible, but what is the choice rather than suck it up.

I'm not sure what to think about this, if everything in the media it does seem draconian and potentially damaging to efforts to increase the reporting of rapes. However she has wasted a lot of peoples time and she has admitted that the allegations are untrue (although she may have been coerced into this position) so she has committed a criminal offence and if followed to its conclusion this leads to the jail term. It seems a very sad conclusion to the whole saga but we won't ever know whether its justified or not.

huddspur
She has not admitted the allegations were false, where did you get that from?