Victim in Rochdale Child Rape Case deemed not a credible witness four years ago

[Nyac]

No "we believe you" there.

How many rapes of children would have been prevented if the CPS had done their job properly back then:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-17853560

Article by Julie Bindel too on how victims are still being ignored:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/09/victims-sex-gangs-complacency-ethnicity

I fully expect to get flamed for this but most of these authorities including the CPS were seemingly too worried about race relations to act earlier.

Oh God. I am finding this really difficult as it happened close to where I grew up.

How can an underage girl being raped by an older man not be a credible witness. What exactly qualifies as a credible witness these days? I really don't understand this.

Going back probably 20 years ago, I remember talking to someone senior in the Met police who suggested that there was a narrow "age window" where the testimony of a child was generally considered "credible," unless there was other evidence of sexual assault or the perpetrator confessed.

If they were too young (e.g. under about 7) it would be too easy to dismiss what they were saying telling tales or fantasising. If they were too old (about 11 onwards, depending on how "old" they looked), they might be thought to be making things up maliciously. It wasn't that he agreed with this but this had been his experience of dealing with child protection cases for many years.

I doubt much has changed in this notional idea of what constitutes a "reliable child witness." My hunch is that the child in the case linked was probably in that 11 plus category. Let's not forget there have been a couple of cases where girls of that age have been victims of rape or sexual assault and either the perpetrators were found guilty of lesser charges or received lighter sentences because the judges made comments suggesting they thought the children "invited" the assault, or similar.

Carer - I don't have alot of time for conspiracy theorists saying this was allowed to continue because the men were Asian. Believe me, the stuff is going on elsewhere where ethnicity and culture aren't factors. The common denominator is a society and institutions (including the Criminal Justice System) that is too willing to ignore violence against women and girls - in some situations, even collude in it.

KRITIQ i didnt quite mean it how it sounded. i was posting while cleaning the bathroom at the same time.

And i know what you mean about it going on elsewhere. I think the problem is that some people in authority or society simply dont WANT to believe it because of other issues that it throws up. And i dont mean ones of race.

Also i am part of a culture (half the family is Italian) where the female (whether she is a child,teenager or woman) is instantly thought to be lying when her word is up against a man"s.

It's also the case that victims of predators are dismissed when the predator is a 'respectable' man: look at the amount of abuse hushed up by the Catholic church. It seems to me that the more the accused tries to stigmatize the accuser as 'slut' 'trash' or whatever, the more likely he is to be guilty. Or at least, the more an accused person bangs on about his own superior morality/social status (rather than coming up with proof that he had no contact with the victim at the time of the incident ie that it's a case of mistaken identity) the more likely it is that if he hasn't abused this victim he's abused someone.

Oh I do know the reasons why the witness wasn't considered credible. It was more incredulity and sadness at a society that wouldn't believe a child was abused by a predator.

This is so depressing. I thought that Julie Bindel article was excellent.The real outrage should be about how widespread rape and sexual abuse is in our society and about girls who report rape not being believed - not the ethnicity of the rapists.

Yup, they've pinned it on race, as if there aren't white men doing the same kind of things across the country.

Don't underestimate the part the own girls' families might have played in her not being believed. You would absolutely shocked at the amount of parents who dismiss their children's allegations and then block the police from investigating. In those situations the police can do very little as if the child's own parents are denying it the case loses credibility completely.

I think Kritiq has hit the nail on the head,

Streetwise 12-15 year old girls are not seen as or treated as children.

But they are, they may drink, smoke and have consensual sex with similar age boys, but they are still children.

They still live at home, have to go to school and have very little money of their own.

They are very very vulnerable to attentions of any man who makes them feel more grown up and gives them more "freedom" than they feel they have.

If your doing badly at school and getting shouted at at home, a few kind words and a bag of chips may be all it needs to start a "friendship".

Society sees a backchatting, tall, tartly dressed young woman, it's the abuser who sees and prays on the frightened child inside.

Once a girl is deemed fuckable by men, then everybody else follows suit in their assessment of what it is OK to do to her.

There was a thread on here a while back where people sympathised with an eighteen year old who had groomed and raped a 12 year old girl.

People pretend to be outraged by child abusers, but they aren't really.

People are outraged by child abuse. This case, however, takes place in a sub-society populated by paedophile rings & care-homes that most of us don't engage with on any level. It's the same when murderers target prostitutes. It's easy to not be quite so horrified when the victims belong to a section of the population that aren't 'like us'.

What astonished me in the reports is that, once over 14, care-home workers are not entitled to prevent a child from being out all night, getting into cars with older boyfriends or any of the other natural protections that parents would normally set up for girls that age. The child has to 'experience life' apparently, even if that means taking horrendous risks that most of us would say were unacceptable.

The race element with the Rochdale case is important for the simple reason that asian girls weren't targeted. They are better protected by their families and therefore not as easy to abuse.

sindyw I'v reported you

BlackOUt, I was just about to report it as well. For those wondering, it was incoherent gibberish with a phone number included.