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?

There may well be some evidence (although in reality is it likely? if the family had been the ones intimidating her, who will stand as witness or cobberate her story. And they'd have to be present at the time of intimidation as actual witnesses or view some conduct which indicated intimidation,not just people she told that she'd been intimidated as there are rules of evidence which would class such testimony as hear say and as such be inadmissable in court) but it would need to be pretty water tight because, as I say, no matter how many upstanding and convincing witnesses there are, it will still be a case of a defence barrister holding up a piece of paper (most likely signed by the woman) stating that she had lied and that no rape had taken place and telling the jury that there is no way they can convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now while viewing this case as we are it would appear easy to see all the facts clearly and objectively. But if you were on the jury for this (or any other case) do you think you could convict someone of a crime beyond reasonable doubt based on the victims testimony in court when a signed contradicting statement was also admitted into evidence? I'm not sure I would.

I think I would.

BUt then why is she is jail? She's in jail because they know the man is a rapist and they're pissed off she said he wasn't

So in other words, the system is set up to let him off, isn't it

"mayorquimby,
she was jailed because they knew that she was lying when she said he hadn't raped her.

The can't have it both ways"

No she was jailed because she was making a statement that she believed to be false with the intention of perverting the course of justice.

To use your terms they can have it both ways.
lets take it from the other point of view.
If a woman accuses a man of rape but the courts decide that no rape has taken place it does not automatically mean that the woman was lying.
So in that case they are similarly having it both ways.
i.e. the woman wasn't lying or attempting to pervert the course of justice when she made a statement to the police that she was raped.
And the man did not rape the woman.

This is simply (from a logical and theory based point of view, though I have criticised what has happened in practice in this case numerous times already) a flip-side of the above argument.
Perverting the court of justice is not to do with the truth but with the intention of the person making the statement or actions to hinder the legal process. As such it is not a necessarry factor that the man have committed a rape for her to be perverting the course of justice only that her statement was made with the intention of hindering the police from investigating the claim and without reasonable belief.

I don't think she was lying with the intention to pevert the course of justice. I think she was lying to save her arse

In other words, your hypothetical example was not an equivalent. If the courts decide no rape has taken place it is not because they have a malicious, sadistic abuser breathing down their neck, is it?

"BUt then why is she is jail? She's in jail because they know the man is a rapist and they're pissed off she said he wasn't

So in other words, the system is set up to let him off, isn't it"

You have to view them as two distinct cases. (once again this is from a legal theory P.O.V rather than any belief in how it should operate).
Case 1:
The man raped his wife. There is evidence against him in the form of a statement from his wife, however there is also a statement from his wife saying that he did not rape her.
She claims that this was made under duress. (we don't know either way what evidence there is to support this.)
The state prosecutors decided to drop the charges. The reason we are assuming,as it is the logical one on the bare facts we have, is that they have deemed the conviction unlikel due to the contradicting statements and the likelihood that they will not be able to meet the requisite burden of proof i.e. that the man raped his wife beyond reasonable doubt.
I can see the logic here as rape cases are already very difficult to prove to this burden of proof (for whatever reason, many people have their own beliefs on why this is so). I could also see the logic in bringing it to trial as there is a case to be argued for duress but if I were to be realistic I would not hold out hope for a conviction based on the way the husband has manipulated the system.

case 2: (this is the timeline as far as I can make out, if I'm wrong please correct me)
The woman makes the statement.
She is pressured to withdraw her statement.
The police inform her they will be proceeding anyway.

She is pressured to make a contradicting statement as dictinct from withdraw.
The police believe that she is making a statement she believes to be false with the intention of perverting the course of justice and she is charged.

Now as far as I can see it is not necessary that the police "know" the man is a rapist (they may believe it and know it in a personal capacity but this is a million miles away from "knowing" in a legal capacity) and as such the woman can be charged with making statement which were intended to pervert the course of justice i.e. gaining a conviction against the man for rape, without proving he's a rapist. Otherwise you could never convict someone for perverting the cours of justice if they were successful in their endeavours. e.g. lets say you are trying someone for perverting the course of justice because they made the conviction of a burglar impossible due to their acts. By the logic employed by some in this case, if you can't prove that the original person on trial for burglary is guilty then how can you claim their accomplice has stopped a burglar from being brought to justice?

As I keep saying this is merely the logic which can be used to explain it from a legal stand point in my opinion.Others may well think I've got the law completely wrong (and I may have,as I stressed earlier I've studied Irish law, not English) I don't personally think it justifies what has happened here, but it can explain how this has happened.

"I don't think she was lying with the intention to pevert the course of justice. I think she was lying to save her arse"

as do I. But for whatever reason (and without the transcript I would not like to hazard a guess) the courts did not accept this on the facts of the trial.

"In other words, your hypothetical example was not an equivalent. If the courts decide no rape has taken place it is not because they have a malicious, sadistic abuser breathing down their neck, is it?"

No it is equivelant as far as your claim that they can't have it both ways. i.e. one is lying, one is telling the truth. So just because the man didn't rape her (as far as the courts are concerned) doesn't mean that her statment wasn't made with the intention to pervert the course of justice.
Personally I think it was, but it is not a definite conclusion as your statement implied.

"I think I would."

And that's fair enough. I'm only presenting possible arguments and legal hypothesis. But as we have no idea what has actually been said for the most part it's all conjecture (especially most of what I've said).

But on this point, while you think you would convict, knowing what you know about rape trials do you the average would convict on such evidence? do you think they'd accept that the rape had happened beyond a reasonable doubt?

As I say, in my opinion I'd be fairly pessimistic of the chances, but that's only one mans opinion.

the trouble is, because we're just working with conjecture, we are assuming that there is no other evidence, because other evidence hasn't been mentioned. There may well be supporting statements from other witnesses to violence or coercion.

I doubt "the average" would, no. But then "the average" doesn't convict on the most compelling evidence sometimes, including tearful victim testimony etc, so who knows the factors at work here.

This is making me think of the Jane Clough case, where after her partner murdered her, the rape case against him was dropped. Her family was extremely upset about this, even though he was found guilty of her murder. Presumably the CPS ruled that he would not ne convicted in her absence despite statements and diaries etc cataloguing the abuse :(

when I said they can't have it both ways, I meant they can't let a man they know has raped off scot free and in the same stroke, jail a woman who was scared about pressing charges.

I think my point is that whoever designed our judicial system didn't know what they were doing. It has to change.

Thanks MQ for the legal stand point.

Do yu have any explanation fir the fact that he was not charged for the recent assaults come? They seem to be quite cut and dried, police were called, witness (albeit a child) available.

Legally, I can accept that she could be charged fir perverting the course of justice. That there were grounds to do so.

Morally, it was just plain wrong.

How the police and CPS could decide to prosecute this woman after seeing what her husband has done to her over the past few years is a mystery to me.

Found this on an American websites:

ladyjulian Yesterday 05:13 AM
If you want to shake a teaspoon at the UK, you might want to email the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Dyfed Powys. If his email follows the usual pattern it will be [email protected] and he is Iwan Jenkins. His department (not him personally so keep it polite) chose to prosecute the woman.

(For anyone who doesn't know, the police in the UK don't have the power to choose to prosecute or not, that is referred to the Crown Prosecution Service who decide whether or not to bring charges. In this case they did.)

So reading all of the legal argument, this decisions means that women are not able to withdraw from rape proceedings under any circs.

That will affect confidence and the reporting rate, surely? And heavily bolster the view of the people who populate "all women are liars" boards.

When you add all of these convictions together you get a picture where women must not report rape unless they are absolutely sure it is a "classic" situation where a conviction is certain, and they must have no doubt that they would wish to withdraw for any reason. So if the police treat them like shit they can't actually withdraw from the process. Basically the woman has to accept that she will hand over all of her autonomy and will have no say in anything. What an awful situation for a victim of rape, where they have already had their power removed by the criminal in the first place.

In your gang example MQ, did all of the gang members who refused to participate get 8 months in prison?

"So reading all of the legal argument, this decisions means that women are not able to withdraw from rape proceedings under any circs."

I'm not sure if that is what it means. The woman was free to withdraw her statement but the police said they were going to proceed with the case anyway. This could happen with other cases, for example a fight between friends which is caught on cctv could be prosecuted even if the victim of the assault did not wish to pursue it, criminal convictions are not acted on by the victim but by the state. As such it is not up to the woman wether or not a prosecution is taken.

What she did was not only withdraw her statement,but later she made an official statement which contradicted her first with the aim (albeit brought about by co-ercion) to pervert the course of justice with regards to an ongoing police investigation into a suspected rape.

"In your gang example MQ, did all of the gang members who refused to participate get 8 months in prison?"

It was not the gang members who were refusing to participate it was witnesses. They were normal citizens who for whatever reason were called. They originally made statements which supported the prosecutions case but when called to the stand they denied all knowledge and said they couldn't remember any of the events which they had stated witnessing earlier on. Some even said they could not remember making the statements.
They were being intimidated by a Limerick gang responsible for a number of murders in less than a year and who had practically taken over their area of the city.
Some were tried and convicted of perjury but none served any jail time, as far as I can recall it was all community service or suspended sentences.

"Do yu have any explanation fir the fact that he was not charged for the recent assaults come? They seem to be quite cut and dried, police were called, witness (albeit a child) available"

No idea no.

Reading it though it seems that she couldn't put a stop to it.

They said that she couldn't do anything to stop them proceeding - so presumably she'd have to testify or be held in contempt of court or perjury like those witnesses to the gang violence

She also wasn't allowed to withdraw her statement as they said she could / would be prosecuted with making a false rape claim

I can't see a way that she could "get off the conveyor belt" without punishment. That's why I said that women should not report rape unless they are 100% sure that there is no way they will want to pull out, whatever happens. That's a huge disincentive to report IMO.

Agree, Isnt. It looks to me as if she was being pressured from both sides.

From the CPS to continue with the case and from her husband to drop the allegations.

Considering she had been with her controlling husband for ten years, since she was a teenager, she probably was completely overwhelmed and unable to cope with the pressure put on her. I read that he was a good bit older than her.

Ugh. Just read about this case on another (non-parenting) board I'm on. The thread was overrun with male posters saying how great it is that CPS is getting serious about 'false allegations of rape'. One poster actually said he was shocked nobody was considering the poor man, the 'real victim' in all this - he's been 'tarred as a rapist forever' now, apparently.

I wish I was exaggerating but it's absolutely true. What the fuck is wrong with people? Are people really this clueless about domestic violence?

Fucking hell, Los.

Sadly, none of them seem to have read the Guardian article, where the victim's sister states that the victim had been abused for years. Did you see this?

How can anyone read that and doubt that she was terrified and desperate?

But she wasn't done for a false allegation of rape. She was done for being raped and then lying by saying that she wasn't.

I suppose that you have to remember, reading the threads on here and living in this society, that a significant minority of people do go around sexually assaulting and raping, and further that many of them genuinely believe they're not doing anything wrong.

So there will be plenty of people who will read this case and genuinely not see that the man had done anything wrong by raping her as she was his wife, and will therefore think she is a troublemaker making malicious accusations.

ISNT - yep and that significant minority's numbers are swelled by people who think that 'false accusations' are a huge worry (when statistically they are not) and a bigger concern than domestic violence itself.

The other discussion is infested with people who can't stop talking about how the woman is a "convicted scurrilous liar" (direct quote). Whereas the poor man hasn't been convicted of anything so OBVIOUSLY the only fair way to approach the case is to assume he's the real victim and she got what she deserved. No matter how little sense that makes. It just shows how totally ignorant people are about domestic violence (willfully so in many cases). Victims regularly decline to prosecute abusers.

lets face it, not everyone reads the whole story in different papers to form a proper unbiased opinion. Read the DM and they love to insert "false allegations' etc in the headline. Many people catch that and have already made up their mind. They don't seem to realise that anything in quotations is hearsay and not fact (the papers are seriously overstepping decency in this type of reporting IMO). Should people be allowed to withdraw their allegations when the prosecution services thinks it's in the publics best interests - it's a hard one as rape seems to fall into a different catagory of crime where the victim seems especially vulnerable.

Mayorquimby - you explained the different law aspects very well without getting into the emotions of this case, thanks.

I've got a new respect for the Telegraph. The article on this was really good.