A rapist's "apology"

[InmaculadaConcepcion]

Here

He thought writing a letter to say sorry and to offer to make it up to his victim would salve his guilty conscious.

Ultimately he got convicted of sexually assaulting his victim. But the punishment meted out was laughable.

The description of the various things that happened made me seethe.

Doesn't read like an apology to me .

Where's the justice? He ADMITS it and still pretty much gets away with it.

How can you only serve 6 months of a 10 year sentence??

The dean's reaction reminds me of when I was in my first year at university and we had gendered halls of residence. They held a 'slave auction' of members of the student council and an all-male hall 'bought' the female members of the council. They made the women serve them dinner and assaulted and abused them verbally throughout. When there was a meeting to discuss what happened, one of the women who spoke out most vehemently was assaulted by one of the key perpetrators - he knocked her to the ground and tore at her tights. No prosecutions were made and the entire appalling thing was hushed up by the university as juvenile horse play. The woman stood down from the student council and I left the university at the end of term and started a degree somewhere else.

It was really, really shocking to see how some men condone violence against women as acceptable. I learned a valuable lesson :(

Surprised if she doesn't sue the University.

I thought the man got in touch because he was carrying out one of those AA programmes where one of the steps is to make amends for past wrongs. Or, at least, that was his cover ....

Christine, that's really shocking.

I'm guessing it was one of the 'older' universities?

I realise that you might not be able to say, obviously.

Yes it was. This was 20 years ago and I started a new degree at what was then a polytechnic, in the hope that it would be slightly more enlightened (and it was)

Did anyone hear Woman's Hour about sexist hate speech on US uni (eg Yale)campuses/fraternity houses and lack of effective action? Hideously similar denial of responsibility etc.

Christine, that's appalling.

And that is depressing, aliceliddell. The rape described in the article happened in 1984. I was wondering if such a thing could still happen now and from what you say, sadly the answer seems to be yes.

Yes I did alice. I nearly wrote on this thread earlier that I worry that once our universities are charging full fees the hushing up is more likely to happen here because they are not going to want the bad publicity which I think is at the root of the issue in the US. Obviously that's underpinned by a horrific acceptance that rape is pretty much a part of life when you put young men and young women together in close proximity.

Yes indeed, Christine. In the US I believe the fraternity alumni often donate large amounts of money to the universities as well, so the unis are even less inclined to pursue a rapist within a frat house.

Glad you agree Immaculada, I wasn't entirely sure whether I was making a bit of a conspiracy theory about it. It's worth listening to the Women's Hour piece (although it makes horribly depressing listening)