Shah - underage girls are 'out to have a good time'

[poachedeggs]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/10/eddy-shah-operation-yewtree-sexual-abuse

Yes, the prostitute he was paying "procured" the youngster for him, because she thought he would be a "good influence" on her, what with him being a "gentleman"

But he "didn't touch her"

Apparently

he may have been found not guilty of rape (the majority of rapists are), but what is this man ? Does he represent something we should be excusing and defending? What do we think of the people who would do that ?

so he just enjoyed fucking in a room with a child in it watching?

Not guilty doesn't mean he didn't have sex with her RonaldMcDonald. It just means there is insufficient proof for the purposes of a trial verdict. In the case of rape there is the matter of consent, which always turns into a he said/she said fight. There isn't any way to prove in court what he did at this late stage and sadly he got away with it, which isn't the same as saying he didn't do it. The verdict doesn't alter the truth, which is that he used a vulnerable child for his own gratification. It's a pity the law is so oblivious to reality.

If we're going to assume that men accused of rape aren't rapists on the basis that the rape allegation against them didn't end in a guilty verdict, we're on shaky ground.

False allegations account for about 2-6% of all allegations.

6% of all allegations result in a guilty verdict.

As the saying goes, you do the math.

math

I understand what you are saying regarding he said she said about rape especially in historic cases but are we now saying that Shah is guilty of rape although he has been tried for it and found not guilty?
I honestly have no idea what went on. I am amazed that everyone on here is certain.

I'm not defending Shah but I find what he said interesting and I think it will be used as a defence during Yewtree prosecutions and investigations

Also I think that there might be some discussion to be had over some of the points he made. It is hard to know how valid the discussion would be or whether it should actually be considered regarding age of consent. As I have previously said I am unsure when or how often a willing sexual participant later decides that she was unwilling through dint of being secretly underage.

If a man thinks a girl is underage then it is his duty to ask
If she says she is over 16 and he still had a question mark then clearly he must not have sex with her

Abusers are not interested about the young age of their victim

I think the reporting and prosecution of rape is very troubling

I think that the 'math' is actually all over the place tbh and therefore that wasn't a terribly helpful comment

what is your interpretation of the "math" Mrs Shah erm, Ronald ?

do you think it is lies ?

Could you quote the bit you found interesting ? - he seemed to talk about underage girls being responsible (which legally is not true) and groupies and pop stars, which doesn't have much to do with jimmy saville et al.

I must have missed the interesting bit.

Good one re Mrs Shah! Good one

I think that rape reporting is reduced because we deal with rape really poorly
therefore I think we have no idea of how huge the numbers really are.
I think that the CPS often agrees on accepting lesser charge to ensure a conviction thus also reducing the actual conviction rates for rape although that might have been the original accusation and charge
There will also be cases where there is reasonable 'reasonable doubt' that is not to say that rape was not committed

The crime statistics are all over the place for rape. That's why it isn't as simple as purely doing 'the math'

Actually, no, that is not the case RonaldMcDonald.

We do have an idea of how huge the numbers actually are, because the British Crime Survey along with lots of modelling research done by various university over the years, have produced data which has been remarkably stable and consistent, not all over the place at all.

You will of course, get Men's Rights Extremists quoting discredited and inaccurate figures, but no-one, from the police to the CPS to the home office, gives them any credit. They give credit to the figures quoted by Rape Crisis, the CPS, etc., as you would expect.

It's just not true that the figures are a big mystery that we can't fathom. The home office, the police, the CPS and Rape Crisis don't take that view, why should we?

er...Basil

take a dekko at this
have a look at the second paragraph

now do you know what you know......

Ronald that figure is for offences once charged and there is thus if it went to a trial there would be a very good chance of conviction. Which is a figure very far from the circs where someone is raped and a complaint is made.

I never understand this idea (which has been around for decades, frankly) that teenage girls often look and act much older than they are. Well yes, sort of. Everyone know that. Everyone knows that a girl who "looks 18" might be 14. Everyone knows that a girl who "looks 16" might be 13.

So the "she looked 18" argument is utterly invalid. People need to reset in their brains what a 14 yo girl looks like. If 14 yo girls have "looked" 18 for the last 40 years, then clearly it is everyone looking at them who has their perceptions screwed.

Maybe there needs to be a "think 25" drive for older people prowling thinking of engaging with intercourse with younger people.

This whole "looks" thing is nothing to do with actual looks - face a nd body and personality and maturity - and everything to do with girls who don the ecoutrements of older women - skimpier clothes and makeup - being seen as then automatically "fair game" in a rape culture. She dresses like a woman therefore she is a woman. Even though I am pretty sure she's only 14.

Pan

My point was that 'doing the math' as was rather simplistically suggested to me regarding rape, reporting, conviction, statistics was rather difficult as actually 'doing the math' depended on what was actually being quoted in stats.
Rape is hugely difficult to accurately quantify as I pointed out for at the very least the reasons I pointed out. That is long before we start to delve into the meat of known conviction and attrition rates

It's just another big fat patriarchal misdirection.

That's the conviction rate of cases that actually go to court.

If you read Kier Starmer's previous report on this subject, he talks in strong terms about the CPS only taking really cut and dried cases to court. And says that is wrong.

In the most basic terms, the CPS only take to court a handful of cases, where there is overwhelming evidence and they are guaranteed of a conviction. Hence the high conviction rate. And the huge gap between reported rapes and ones that go to prosecution. And you need to look at attirition rates and the huge discrepancies in "no criming" rape and other sexual / DV offences.

The crime survey is a great resource as it is about people's experience of crime in the population, and puts aside all of that stuff.

oh sure, 'doing the math' was making assumptions the size of Canada, but certainly the very low conviction 'rate' (around 6%) is widely accepted as fairly accurate - the obstacles between complaint and conviction remain.

Also bearing in mind that the 6% is the conviction rate of cases that are reported to police and actually get recorded as rapes (as opposed to other offences or even no crimed).

But the thrust of "doing the math" is that although we know that rape stats are difficult, they're not that difficult.

OK, we won't get exact figures, we can't; but we can get a steer. And the steer is, that the overwhelming majority of men who are accused of rape and are then do not end up in a court of law being found guilty, are actually rapists.

Yes once you get to court your chance of conviction versus other crimes is actually higher for rape; but seeing as how most rape cases don't make it to court, so what? Only the most horrendous and clear cut cases get there - the ones most likely to secure a conviction - and still a large number, though a minority, get off, even though the probability is that most of them are guilty. As to the cases that don't get to court, mostly those men are rapists. That's without taking into account the 85-90% of rape cases not reported in the first place.

Don't do the maths then, because the maths are uncertain. But what isn't uncertain, is the general gist. That when a man walks free from a court or a police station not having been found guilty or charged with rape, the statistical probability is that he is in fact a rapist.

It's one of the reasons we ought to be improving rape conviction rates; because for the tiny minority of men who are in fact falsely accused, we need to ensure that the probability of them being guilty is far far lower than it is now so that we can all assume the same level of probability of their guilt, as we would a man accused of burglary or fraud or whatever.

Sorry, x posted with NiceTabard

Ronald the 'she looked older and led me on honest guv' defense is used on a frequent basis, so no what Mr Shah has to say is not interesting or new just the same old avoidance of responsibilities. It is a significant problem because the 'looks older' defense means that instead of 16 being the age of consent it slips to 13. I cannot believe that anyone is really defending the right of men to have sex with 13 year olds with no consequence (for them that is). There are plenty of available adults to have sex with, so it has to be a choice to target girls, and it shoudl be an unacceptable choice.

To reiterate I am not talking about teenagers exploring with each other, although as someone who first had sex at 19 and with a 13 year old daughter (and a 14 year old son for that matter) I would say that they certainly aren't ready, and for that matter neither was I.

Not only is he most likely a rapist, he is also most likely a multiple offender.

PDF here that takes a while to load at least on my computer, but here is a study on undetected and unprosecuted rapists that is sobering.

Don't do the maths then, because the maths are uncertain. But what isn't uncertain, is the general gist. That when a man walks free from a court or a police station not having been found guilty or charged with rape, the statistical probability is that he is in fact a rapist

This completely misrepresents the way "the maths" works. The stats in this area are a political football so the only definites - guilty and falsely accused - are the Very Certain ones. Those who are convicted are the ones who are most definitely guilty to a high level of certainty, those who are judged as false accusations are definitely false to a high level of certainty. In between is everything from very probably false to very probably guilty.

To argue that all those not convicted are still guilty of rape makes as much sense as arguing that all those not convicted were falsely accused.

Shah said:

"It's easy policing and easy prosecutions".

Whatever you think about the statistics, this is not true. Rape trials are not easy and it is not easy to gather enough information to take the case to court.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, as far as I am aware he made these remarks in the context of an interview and perhaps was only answering the questions he was asked. It is also true that whether or not the court finds the accused guilty, allegations of a sexual offence are very damaging.

However, really, if there are grown-ups who are honestly of the opinion that the world is full of underage children trapping adults into sex so that they can have their day in court, and that the police are only too willing to spend money on helping them, the answer is simple: don't have sex with teenagers.

" In between is everything from very probably false to very probably guilty. "

No, that's not true.

Any research that has been done on false allegations which is robust and accepted by organisations which aren't men's rights extremist, shows that false allegations of rape are extremely rare. The proportion of "very probably guilty" considerably outweighs the "very probably false".