Horrific case - another idiotic judge not taking rape seriously

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

...and then the bastard found his victim and killed her.

Link here

And the government have called off the investigation into handling of rape cases. Because it's obviously not needed :(

Jesus:
"A further banner referred to Judge Russell's comments at an earlier hearing where he said the rape charge "pales into insignificance" compared to the murder - "the most serious crime in the criminal calendar"."

And the whole thing of charges being placed on file "not the same as dropping charges" - well no, but it's not the same as sodding charging someone is it?

All those specific counts as well - there must have had good testimony from her :(

I hope the defence who applied for his bail never sleep again.

And they say "why don't you just leave him?"

Er, because the police won't protect her and she rightly fears for her life?

:(

oh hell, the stupid idiot judges, they are so missing the point.

soooo many of the serial killers they finally manage to convict/evil bastards such as Josef Fritzl have raped and got away with it at some point. They commit violent rape, they get away with it, so they take things up a notch thinking they can get away with that as well.

murderers don't just come out of the blue, they start off being violent at a lower level and there are opportunities to stop them which are not taken.

retrospectively saying 'oh well the rape wasn't important' is sending out totally the wrong message. It make people think rape is ok. Why do they not see that?

Because they actually think it is unimportant, I guess?

There's a massive cognitive dissonance on this subject too, I think. (can say magic CD words now idiot has left the building)

Yes. Because they don't think rape is important. At all.

If they did, we wouldn't have a 94% non-conviction rate for reported rape.

I don't know what to say. That's horrific - the poor family.

Just a thought because she has sadly died she could not give evidence so they would probably find it difficult to secure a rape conviction (although I don't know the evidence in the case so there might be other evidence).

Oh brilliant - another Sapphire officer keeping up the good work :(

Link

Unbelievable

The BBC article makes it more obvious what he did:

"A detective at Scotland Yard's new rape investigation unit, Sapphire, has been suspended over claims of "irregularities" in 30 cases.

The detective constable is also under investigation for his dealings with a woman who died in an apparent suicide pact at Putney in south-west London.

It is alleged that the Kingston-upon-Thames-based officer fabricated letters to victims from the CPS.

He said that inquiries had been discontinued, it is alleged."

So he pretended that the cases had been dropped, when they hadn't, and this (presumably) led to 2 victims deciding to kill themselves. Why the fucking fuck would he do something like that?

Hello,

I read this story in the paper with utter horror, somewhere between fury at the people who allowed this woman's life to be taken and impotent sadness at the terrible, unforgivable waste of this woman's life.

She was a nurse, a young mother. She was important and she is lost to the world now because of this brute who raped and then murdered her, and the brutal system that left an obviously dangerous man free to do this.

Her poor family, her daughter, her parents :(

She was so brave to take him on, and look where it got her.

I don't often get truly upset by news stories, but from the time I read about this I wanted to come here where I knew other people would share my horror and lack of surprise.

Presumably the judge thought it wasn't really rape if they were/had been in a relationship. That is a pretty endemic opinion is it not? Awful beyond words.

I am a regular here but have namechanged for this for obvious reasons.

I actually had a few dealings with this man during the time between his bail and the murder - god, it sends shivers down my spine when I think about it

Anyway, I think, from subsequent discussions with other people involved, it was obvious to most people that he was a danger...certainly when I first heard that a nurse had been murdered outside that hospital (before I knew any details at all), my instinct straight away was that he had murdered the woman who had made all the allegations of rape so I must have thought he was capable of it.

So, if I thought that, why the hell couldn't a judge see it??

I am so furious about the whole thing....what kind of message has this sent out to other women in violent relationships?

MrJelly

there's a thread about this in In The News and we've just had an 'ah but some women make false allegations' post.
FFS!

Unfortunately, a percentage of truly awful, seriously abusive and dangerous people, get themselves jobs where they will be working with victims and those who are vulnerable because they want to be able to fuck these people up some more. Sometimes it's psychiatry, sometimes (for the thick ones or the ill-educated ones) it's something like care home work where they can feed their sickness by roughly handling their patients or whatever. SOmetimes, as in cases like this, it's coppers.

MrJelly - that's scary. Do you think there's an institutionalised problem with how cases like this are handled?