the use of the word 'alleged'

[foreverastudent]

I was driving in my care and heard on the radio a quick news report of an '11 year old boy who was sexually assaulted'. I'm sorry I don't have a link (can't remember the station/time) but I noted the absence of the word 'alleged'. AFAICR whenever I've heard similar news reports (female victims) they always use the word 'alleged'.

Was this case different because male rape/sexual assault victims are to be believed whereas female ones aren't?

It really bugs me when they use that word. They should either use it for all crime victims or none.

Because it's generally entirely clear (well, within a few hours, anyway) whether there has actually been a hijacking or a bombing. If a reporter is standing in front of an airport with a hijacked plane on the tarmac behind him from which the hijackers are negotiating with police/government it's a bit to say "alleged hijackers". Similarly if a car bomb has gone off and you are standing reporting from the crater while referring to the "alleged bombing". Kind of like talking about an "alleged banana" or an "alleged chair".

Sorry, "alleged hijacking", not "alleged hijackers". Trying to do two things at once...

Can anyone remember how they reported the 7/7 bombings? I seem to recall someone telling me it was a 'suspected bombing' at some stage - because there, they really weren't sure for quite some time (45 minutes-an hour).

LRP don't know the actual answer but it was on the news the other day, I think to do with the inquest, that there was a period when they were unsure whether it had been a bombing or not.

Although saying that I was caught up in it all and thinking about it I don't recall not knowing it was a bombing, and that was pretty early on.

That was what struck me about the "alleged victim" thing. Why pick out rape victims unless you're implying that they're pretty likely to prove to have not been victims.

He was arrested for their murder, though (as in "you are under arrest for the murder of..."). That's a statement of fact. And he was arrested as soon as the bodies were found.

You often get "Police are treating the death as murder", or "as suspicious", which is a longwinded way of saying "alleged".

Once it has been established that someone has been murdered, the murder itself is a matter of fact. A person has been intentionally killed by another person. It is therefore not an ?alleged? murder and it would be wrong to report it as such.

The question of who is responsible for the murder, however, does remain open. As such the person accused is an ?alleged? murderer (or some variation thereon) and this is what is generally reported.

Exactly. A death can be manslaughter, murder, suicide, death by dangerous driving, death by careless driving etc. What it was is proven in court, not by the police. So pre-trial the same doubts about what the crime was exist.

Yes, I do agree with dittany there -- the defence when someone is arrested and the case comes to trial may be that the person actually killed himself, or that the person who killed him was insane, or that there was provocation, or that it was an accident (in each of which cases it wouldn't be murder). But I think they should say "alleged murder" i.e. to the extent that they don't already, extend the routine use of "alleged" out to cover any cases where the very existence or otherwise of a crime, or of a specific crime, could form the basis of a defence in court. I do definitely think that they should be consistent about that.

Random OT fact -- the elements of manslaughter and death by dangerous driving are exactly the same (except that in DbDD there needs additionally to have been driving involved) but they found that juries were reluctant to convict of manslaughter in driving cases. So they created a new offence, with exactly the same things that needed to be proved to establish guilt, and hey presto juries were far more willing to convict. Which shows something about the power of language in criminal cases so maybe isn't quite so OT after all.

Gosh, this is going to get jurisprudential...!

Technically, in any of the situations above, the person has been murdered under the common law requirements of murder, i.e. intentionally killed by another person. The defence under certain circumstances is not that any of those requirements have not been met, but rather that the accused has a defence to the charge of murder (such as provocation).

So, for example, if a person is judged to have acted in self-defence then the victim has still been murdered, but the accused is not guilty by reason of self-defence.

Not if it is suicide surely? I have read of cases where it was claimed that the victim killed him/herself.

That's really interesting Prof. Do you think we could introduce "fucking without due care and attention" and ramp up the rape conviction rates?

EvilAnts
PMSL!

Well, if it's suicide or accident then the person fairly clearly hasn't been intentionally killed by another person. And an insanity defence can run to the fact that the defendant was incapable of forming an intention so the victim was not intentionally killed.

There was an episode of Boston Legal where A was charged with murdering B. Eventually it emerged that B had committed suicide and that C, happening upon the scene, had rearranged things to make it look like a murder rather than suicide (because C was the beneficiary of B's life insurance policy, which had a suicide exclusion).

Love a good whodunnit - now what do you think of my alternative rape charge plan?

Interesting Prof, though in the suicide or accident case then I imagine that it's very unlikely that the case would be treated as murder as there would be no evidence that the person was intentionally killed by another person. Hence the CPS wouldn't proceed.

Outside of fiction, and a couple of notorious high profile cases (which tend to be high profile because they are very unusual), the 'defence' that the murder was suicide or accident are incredibly few and far between. I think most coroners are able to tell the difference between suicide, accident and murder.

Good point on the insanity defence though

I think people are tying themselves up in knots here. There is no reason why sexual offences are treated any differently to other offences by the media, criminal justice system etc.

All offences that have yet to be determined by the courts are alleged offences. Journalists are under a strict obligation to report them as thus. Once a convistion has been acheived, the alleged status no longer applies.

how does that explain the pattern I noted of "alleged victim" only being used in rape cases then?

You are wrong I'm afraid EvilAnts. I can't explain why you think it's a pattern.