Oxford Union president rape allegations - alumni open letter

[FairPhyllis]

The president of the Oxford Union (which is a debating society at Oxford), Ben Sullivan, is currently being investigated over allegations of rape and attempted rape of two undergraduates at the university. He is refusing to resign or suspend his presidency. Speakers are beginning to pull out of events.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10845979/Oxford-Union-boycott-after-president-returns-despite-police-investigation-into-rape-allegations.html

If you are a member of the university or an Oxford alumna/us, and feel strongly about the minimisation of rape and sexual assault "on campus" there is an open letter you can sign here calling for Sullivan to step aside while under investigation. It is organised by the OUSU VP (Women) and other students.

[PeckhamPearlz]

Flora well I think we can finally agree.

Yes there's still lots to do but I just wanted to say that the process I saw in the case a couple of years ago was just centuries ahead of the first one I sat on about 25 years ago.

Now I'm off out for a drink - g'night all.

[FloraFox]

Pearl from those reports, of the men who plead not guilty in Crown Court, only 39% were found guilty.

One of the reasons women don't report or don't proceed to court is because of the ordeal they go through during trial and the low likelihood of a guilty verdict.

I'm not saying that we don't do anything about the cases that never get there but most people acknowledge that problems in the court system contribute to the unwillingness of women to report and proceed with their case. The report you linked to was reported here:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/100000-assaults-1000-rapists-sentenced-shockingly-low-conviction-rates-revealed-8446058.html

A spokesperson for Rape Crisis England said:

“It is a chicken and egg situation: women do not report offences because they know they are very unlikely to get a conviction. They know they would have to put themselves through a system which is very traumatic and are likely to come out at the other end with no justice.”

We can make changes in the justice system to make convictions more likely. That would help more women come forward.

[PeckhamPearlz]

And here's the official government statistics report

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/214970/sexual-offending-overview-jan-2013.pdf

Forgive me for cherry picking from it ...

Number of women raped - 85,000

Number of men raped - 12,000

Number of cases committed for trial at crown court - 2,747

So do we worry more about the details of the thousand or so cases that fail to secure a conviction at trial, or the 94,000 cases that never get there?

That's all I'm sayin'

[PeckhamPearlz]

Here's the CPS announcement for the conviction rate for rape last year

An 'all time high' of 63% for rape and 74% for DV

www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/dpp_announces_new_conviction_rate_in_rape_and_domestic_violence_cases/

[PeckhamPearlz]

s'pose not
just call me Pearl btw

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Comments like that prob won't help, Peckham!

[PeckhamPearlz]

Thanks Bill - for one moment I was thinking that I'd slipped into a parallel universe where everything you say is misunderstood and misrepresented.

I'd better get used to that round here I suppose...

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Flora, to be fair to Peckham, I think he/she is right that the conviction rate once cases get to court is similar as other serious crimes and that there are large problems with the amount of cases that get to court.

(I think it could be argued that it should be higher as more cases fall out at an earlier stage therefore any that have made it through have met a "higher standard" of evidence in some way)

Beyond the verdict, though, as I linked to upthread somewhere, I have a lot of problems with the attitude of some judges to sentencing and their accompanying comments.

[FloraFox]

peckham doing jury duty three times does not make you an authority on the legal system or how lawyers work. An accused person does not need to give evidence, the defence can be presented through cross-examination by defence counsel. Famous people tend to give evidence because they are concerned about the public's perception of them.

I find it odd that you have had such a clearly unrepresentative experience (100% conviction rate) but you are so resolutely saying there are no problems in the criminal justice system and how it deals with rape cases based on your experience.

[Chachah]

just here to say that having made the mistake to read a comments section about this, I cannot believe how uneducated people are, and there needs to be something done about it.

man found not guilty does NOT equal woman found to be a liar. FFS. Is that so difficult to understand?

[LurcioAgain]

Thanks for that Peckham - very interesting. Actually, does anyone have the stats to hand? I seem to remember reading that your experience is backed up to some extent by the stats - the actual conviction rates for rape charges which reach court are fairly comparable to those for other crimes - the drop off is with the CPS deciding not to proceed, or with cases being "no-crimed" at earlier stages.

[PeckhamPearlz]

When I say 'UK' I should say 'England and Wales' - Scotland has its own law, of course.

[PeckhamPearlz]

Flora

You've not said anything to address my main point - which is that there is no need to compel rape defendants to testify because they always need to anyway to make any sort of defence.

This has been true for all the trials I've seen (admittedly a small sample)

It's also true for all the recent celebrity trials (although not all of those have been for rape)

I would be interested if you could point me to any typical UK rape trial where the defendant didn't testify but wasn't convicted. By typical I mean excluding those where the prosecution case was broken purely by technical evidence - e.g. showing that the defendant could not have been at the scene etc.


I know criminal defence lawyers who will withdraw from the case if the accused insists on giving evidence

For rape cases I find that quite difficult to believe. Unless you're not in the UK? it sounds more like an american thing?

In the UK barristers are officers of the court. Your defence barrister is not allowed to collude with you to devise the best defence which circumvents the prosecution evidence - they just have to take whatever story you tell and try and run with it.

I've sat in court completely incredulous at the ridiculous defence being made, when there was a much simpler and more difficult to disprove story that could be told. It was only afterwards that an ex-barrister aquaintance explained how it works - whatever bollocks the defendant comes up with, the barrister has to run with it.

Basically my point is that with current UK law and procedures, once you've got a rapist in the dock, facing a real life jury, he's in a bad place. It's getting the bastards to that point is where we should concentrate efforts now.

[PeckhamPearlz]

OutSelf - Yes +1

[OutsSelf]

*libelling not labelling

[OutsSelf]

Just really want to applaud the lucid and articulate explanations from Buffy, Bill, LRD etc. No one has clearly responded to the double standard issue, as in most people accused of.serious crime.or.misconduct are suspended/ suspend themselves during investigations, why would this case be different?

And also, just want to query why allegations of.false accusations are.being left to stand, false accusation is a.criminal offense which has not been proved or even apparently considered in this case so those people.alleging false accusations are.currently labelling two young women?

Also, can I just point out that The Crucible is a work of.fiction meant to metaphorically refer to the McCarthyism. Also, it was written by a sexist man in a sexist time interpreting a series of events in which young women were afraid for their lives in the case they had been found to be legally responsible for their own sexual desire/ autonomy. So it's hardly likely to be a just or truthful interpretation, more likely to be biased by the sexist prejudices of the man writing about the people of another deeply misogynistic era. And is in any case a work of fiction and not an historical document.

[FloraFox]

Peckham I think the fact that your experience is of a 100% conviction rate demonstrates that your experience does not reflect the norm and also demonstrates the benefit of the accused being required to give evidence. I know criminal defence lawyers who will withdraw from the case if the accused insists on giving evidence, such is the likelihood of them incriminating themselves on the stand.

[PeckhamPearlz]

BillnTeds, Lurcio

I like the idea that the defendant must speak if belief in consent is his defence

I think you're chasing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

IME rape defendants always take to the witness box to speak - it's usually the only defence they can make. If you don't believe me go and watch a rape trial yourself (otoh - no, don't - they're not very nice).

I've done jury service 3 times, and in each of my stints one of the trials was a rape - I don't know whether I've just been 'lucky' or whether it just reflects that a lot of jury trials are for rape. Most recent one was a couple of years ago, and I remember the details of that very well.

In all three cases the defendants chose to speak. In all 3 cases (ISTR) they were the only defence witness. In at least one case the defendant effectively convicted himself on the stand - one person making up a story is no match for 12 people critically comparing that story against all the other evidence they've heard.

So 3 cases, 3 convictions. We spent hours debating every single scrap of evidence - but there's not a shred of doubt in my mind that we got it absolutely right.

So having seen this from the inside, I'm totally convinced that the 'trial by jury' part of the system is working fine, in particular the last trial was very good indeed (police, CPS preparation etc). I believe the conviction rate for rape cases that go to trial by jury is now around 60% - which is exactly where it should be. It seems to me that it's getting to that point which is the challenge.

Bear in mind that forensic science has pretty much put paid to nearly all defences to rape ("it wasn't me" etc) - the only one left is 'consent' - which of course is why we're discussing it.

At my last trial the prosecution opened with an outline of the case and then a very long and detailed discussion about the exact wording and meaning of the current law, the concept of consent and what it did and didn't mean. The defence opening was shorter but did pretty much the same. So after the first hour or so, before we had heard a single witness, we were all very clear on what this case was about, and what we had to do.

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Thanks, Flora.

[FloraFox]

No, I don't think the letter of the law reflects this but I think there has been a gradual change in how the law views consent. It used to be that there would need to be visible signs of a struggle. Even then, I recall hearing about a Scottish judge using the phrase "rough wooing" in relation to a rape meaning that the encounter may have started out rough but the woman consent in the end. This used to be a common portrayal in films - the rough kiss then the woman swoons into his arms. The law moved on to more of a "no means no" assumption where no force was required but if there was no evidence of the woman saying no, there would be no conviction. The legislation now said that in considering whether the accused's belief in consent was reasonable, the court can take account of what steps he took to ascertain consent. There is no implied or presumed consent per se but this doesn't mean he has to take steps and, as noted above, he doesn't need to give evidence to raise a defence of consent. I don't know what the directions to the jury are currently, I think they have improved greatly. But these assumptions run deep and don't change immediately with legislation. In particular, the concept of "reasonable" belief will be open to interpretation by judges and juries.

[LurcioAgain]

My understanding (I am not a lawyer - this is based on people on here linking to the relevant bits of the relevant acts of parliament) is that there is no such thing as implied or presumed consent in UK law. Consent is not the absence of "no", it is (under UK law) the presence of "yes".

However, I am far from clear whether this point is made clear to jurors before the trial starts (note - not in the judge's summing up - that's too late because jurors will already have filtered the evidence in their minds according to their pre-existing belief set).

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

"The current laws are still based on the assumption that a woman is consenting unless she says "no". If the accused had to take the stand, it would mean that him saying "she didn't say no" would not meet the standards of reasonable belief in her consent."

I'm fine with all this. I don't think women are in a state of consent by default, do you think the law "thinks" this - the letter of the law rather than the practice by judges or juries (the man who didn't speak English and therefore "didn't understand" no being a case in point of a shitty defence)

[FloraFox]

billn I think you could reflect positive consent in the law. The current laws are still based on the assumption that a woman is consenting unless she says "no". If the accused had to take the stand, it would mean that him saying "she didn't say no" would not meet the standards of reasonable belief in her consent. It sounds like a small thing but it would make a big difference to the cross-examination.

Lurcio maybe it is worth trying something. I think it would make a big difference to rape cases. It might also highlight that many rape cases are not "he said, she said". This common misconception fuels the belief that anyone not convicted is innocent, that the jury thought he was telling the truth and she wasn't. I think it was also mean more charges would be brought as the jury would get a chance to see / hear the accused. The statistics on false claims are largely derived from law enforcement officials who questioned both parties and believed the woman. The problem is that when they assess the evidence, they know the man won't need to give evidence. There are other factors too but that has to be significant.

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Avoir, there's no "final analysis"

Should people under investigation for a serious crime step aside from a role whilst the investigation is ongoing? Some agree, some don't. None of those who agree are making any assumptions about whether the one under investigation. Is guilty or not.