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?

It says in the article "the wife went to police to say the allegations of rape had been untrue"

but then went on to retract the statement saying they were false (they accept she was probably raped but are taking a stance on her saying she made it up that it was false)- which is what they are getting her on. It's oh so complicated.

It is complicated. I had to read it a couple of times.

She retracted her statement saying that the allegations were false.

This was what she was prosecuted for - falsely retracting rape allegations.

ISNT, I don't think it's just happening at the moment. I reckon it's always been like this and now that we have the internet and online newspapers and all these quick exchanges of info, we are beginning to see the judicial system in all its glory.
I didn't know women were jailed for not paying their TV licence, for example.

THis is really horrifying.

As far as I can work out, it went like this.

1. She reported her husband to the police for raping her

2. She alleges he and his family put pressure on her to retract her complaint

3. She went back to the police, maintaining that he did rape her but saying she doesn't want it to go to court.

4. The police tell her they'll be going ahead whether she likes it or not.

5. She gives a statement retracting her original allegation - i.e. new statement says she was not raped.

6)It is judged that her second statement was false, and she is sent to prison for perverting the course of justice.

The implication is clear - if the second statement "he didn't rape me" has been judged false, then somewhere along the line it's been judged, nay proved, that he did rape her.

And yet it's her, not him, in prison.

WTF, I didn't catch the bit where it said he's not in prison.
WTF WTF
The whole basis of her being in jail is that a rape has taken place

Um, well, think that's fair enough.

Not fair to mess around with judicial processes in this way. Either she was raped or she wasn't. Either she wanted the case prosecuted or she didn't.

I know that anyone in this situation might think they should be excused for muddled thinking. But these processes take time (enough to reflect) and money.

So you think someone should be imprisoned for dropping charges under pressure from their violent attacker, Quattro? Doesn't sound like justice to me.

I think Vixen is right, there must be more to this case than we know.

Presumably the police offered her help to go through with the complaint if she wanted it? She will have been offered help from Women's aid and given some from of protection and support if she wanted it.

I agree that she should have been prosecuted. There is only so much the legal system can do for someone that doesn't want to help themselves, and what she did was wrong. I do feel her sentence was far too harsh though.

Rape isn't just a physical thing, a victim can be mentally scarred for life. Bearing in mind that this woman has come forward about a huge taboo (rape in marriage) & then been harrassed by her nearest & dearest for doing so, is it fair to say she was in a good mental state when she has retracted the statement etc?
Is this any way to look after a victim? While the perpatrator walks free?
I know that the police can prosecute for DV without supporting statements from the victim so am wondering what happened here?

"The Crown Prosecution Service and police said they would continue with the prosecution and the husband appeared in court, pleading not guilty" - pretty difficult to secure a conviction if the victim does not agree mrsbigw.

"Presumably the police offered her help to go through with the complaint if she wanted it? She will have been offered help from Women's aid and given some from of protection and support if she wanted it."

That's a few big assumptions there.

Are people on this thread really saying that women should not tell the police they have been attacked, even for information, unless they are prepared to see a court case through to teh bitter end?

Don't the police want information about assaults, even if up front the woman says she does not want to take it any further?

That's really disturbing.

The comments on the guardian site say that people absolutely must not report things to the police unless they are certain they will see them through to the end.

With rape there is a terribly high attrition rate, women withdraw for all sorts of reasons. If that is seen as a criminal action then really no-one is safe reporting rape?

If I went to the police and reported something and was not treated well (which is pretty common), or realised that emotionally I could not cope with the court case, or I was threatened, and decided not to proceed then I could go to prison. How can that be right?

Do people feel that that this should be the case for all accusations including those coming from children? Is there a cut-off age at which victims should be punished for not being able to proceed?

"The whole basis of her being in jail is that a rape has taken place"

It's not though. It would appear that way but I think the logic of it is not that a rape has actually taken place, but instead that she has intentionally tried to deceive the police as to her official statement and recollection of what happened.
i.e. she has retracted a statement saying that no rape has taken place even though she honestly believes one has.

It's complicated but I think that is the logic.
As for instance if she had not retracted her statement and the husband had still not been convicted she then wouldn't be charged with making a false statement (wrt having been raped) as at no point would she have had the intention to pervert the course of justice.
perjury/perverting the course of justice is an incohate offence as far as I recall, and as such it is not dependent on the persons testimony or statements being believed, only that these statements were made with the intention of being believed and preventing justice from being done.

FWIW I'm not sure how a defence of durress has not been successfull based on the facts given there. If she was threatened and pressured into retracting her statements then it's appalling that she has been convicted.

I think there needs to be a distinction made here between retracting statements/withdrawing and making contradicting statements to the original.
There also needs to be a close eye kept on the reasons for making such statements (i.e. threats/duress) but given the fact that these people will most likely all ready be under enough pressure to make these contradicting statemnts it is unlikely that they will volunteer the information that they are doing so under threat.

I think there is a lot more to this case then we know. If she had been threatened or emotionally blackmailed then they could have used duress as her defence for her retraction of her statement.

Mayor
That is interesting. Legal wrangling aside, there was a point at which the prosecuter decided that although he believed that the woman had been raped, and been intimidated into retracting her statement, he (she/they - whoever made that decision) went ahead with the prosecution for retracting her false statement.

Once it got to the stage that it was in front of the judge, there was no going back.

The woman had in turns been pressured by her husband and his family, the police and the prosecutor - no wonder she was confused as to the best way of proceeding.

Agree completely.
It seems baffling to me. My only point would be that it's not necessarily true that the court/prosecuter believed she was raped as a matter of fact, only that she believed she had been raped, reported it and then attempted to impede the polices legitimate explanation. It seems a technicality but it does offer some slight context from a legal stand point that no decision had been reached as to the mans guilt.
This however is a very slight context, but legally they are two distinct and seperate trials. However it is beyond me how a defence of duress was not successful or at the very least if the judge felt his hands were tied by strict legal definitions and technicalities that a suspended sentence was not deemed more apt. As you say, she's been put through the ringer from all sides and is in the eyes of the law enough of a potential rape victim for the police to take her original statement seriously. I fail to see how jailing her has served anyone.

The interesting thing is that reading the reports there seems to be a quite obvious chain of events

• She made the accusation and it was proceeding to court
• She told the police she no longer wished to go to court
• Police/CPS told her there was no way she could pull out
• She retracted original statement

There seems to be a coherent chain of events, surely the police and CPS could see what had happened - with her trying to pull out and then when she was told no saying "oh actually I made it up".

The prosecution of this seems really bizarre to me. Really kicking someone when they're down IYKWIM.

I think they prosecuted her because her actions wasted a lot of peoples time and resources. Still doesn't seem quite right though

I read in the Guardian today that Victim support have refused her any support/counselling for her rape and trial because she was the perpetrator!

link darlene?

Fucking hell

That just made me cry. Poor poor woman. What she has been through.

Why the FUCK has this bastard not been prosecuted, even when he attacked her THIS YEAR, in October.