Man cleared of rape because he was too drunk to realise which bed he was in.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Sorry DM but here.

This guy's girlfriend refused sex, he stumbled into another room "by accident" and started having sex with the woman in the bed there.

He was cleared of rape.

There is so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start. I imagine he's been cleared because he didn't intend (apparently) to commit a crime. But the fact is that neither woman had consented to sex with him, so whoever he decided to penetrate it would have been rape. He seems to have been cleared on the grounds that if he had walked back into his (non-consenting) girlfriend's room and penetrated her without further ado, that would not have been rape. It obviously would have been.

:( scared and all at once.

Sorry that was in response to your earlier post

norman - Bill Aitken has resigned as a result of the media furore over his disgraceful remarks. That of course doesn't mean that he is alone in thinking as he does - that survey that Amnesty (iirc) did a few years back showed how many people really believe that rape is usually the woman's fault for being in the wrong place/dressed wrong/behaving wrong etc

Christ.

"... whether the courtroom is the best place to resolve some of these questions about rape"

Well yes, why bother with the courtroom, rape is practically legal anyway, why not just go the whole hog and make it very clear to all men what some of them don't realise - that if they rape a woman, no-one's going to punish them for it.

I was utterly shocked by Bill Aitken. Not just that he held those views (which are appalling) but that he didn't seem to see anything wrong with them. In fact I don't think it occurred to him that what he was saying might be in the slightest bit controversial - he said all this to a journalist! God knows what they say at the golf club

I haven#t seen the hollyoaks storyline but if what has been shown is two people going into a bedroom together, and there is no evidence of physical violence on the woman, then I will eat my hat if the result if their "experiment" goes against the man.

Which makes me wonder - why are they doing this?

Maybe better look at the link!

I have tweeted Guardian to ask if there is a reason that they are not covering this story.

Aitken's comments were a sign of how rape is seen in this country.

A commenter on Twitter just wrote: Equality: if a drunk woman is raped, it's her fault. If a drunk man rapes, it's NOT his fault.

So, silly question time, but bear with me...

Does this mean then, that the poor woman who he raped, could now be arrested and imprisoned for alleging he raped her?

Also I'll eat my hat if the producers go for the realistic tale that yes he raped her and then yes he'll get away with it. It won't be "edgy" enough if she's telling the truth, so I predict another woman-lies-about-rape storyline :(

Norman - there was a thread on the Bill Aitken stuff a short while ago. Disgusting behaviour on his part.

Hollyoaks - FFS! yes, let's turn rape trials into some sort of reality tv show, what a great idea! [not]

Deemented- i imagine in theory it could happen. There are a lot of people who think that if a man is found not guilty of rape for any reason then his victim accuser should be locked up. These are people who basically hate women ( though some are women) though, and presumably want women to stop complaining about being raped already :(

Really dittany? That's Exactly the sort of thing I'm expecting from this (actually the example was thinking of was 'he'll turn out to have no cock or something') - something to allow him to be let off. Or he'll be jailed even though she was lying. One or the other. Heaven forbid a woman be seen to be telling the truth about rape, and a man be seen to be punished for what he did.

i am stunned by this. what logic could possible clear him of rape. he hadn't received consent from anyone that means he penetrated a woman without consent. he did, no-one made him, he did that and that is rape. how can he be cleared of soemthing he so obviously did?

surely there must be more to this story? the article isnt exactly the best bit of journalism i have ever read, commenting about completely unconnected cases in the last few paragraphs as if they were related to the main case.

if he was not so drunk that he could initiate sex, and actually have sex, then how can he be too drunk to notice the person he was with was saying no. I find this horrifying and hope its just dm nonsense.

Gosh dittany - either you're even older than me or you have a fab memory - I remember Crown Court, was actually thinking about it when I wrote my post, but couldn't remember a single case from it if I tried! I used to watch it during the daytime, iirc, probably in school holidays.

This is another case where if I was the woman who had been raped I'd be going to the civil courts arguing that regardless of the rapists sleep disorders or intent I had suffered damages and deserved compensation from the rapist whether or not the criminal courts thought he should go to jail.

I wish I didn't fucking know why things like this happen Booy but I do, and so do you :(

Dittany - yes and then the sentences nearly always run concurrently so basically if you've raped one woman, in jail terms you get to rape as many more women as you like 'for free'

i posted a comment but they're moderating for this article and i commented on how vile it was of the DM to tag on the 'cry rape' story to this so it wont be posted.