109 women prosecuted for false rape claims in past 5 years

[AWholeLottaNosy]

This made me so angry. The thousands of women that can't get justice for being raped due to 'lack of evidence' yet the CPS thinks it's ok to pursue these women for reporting their rape to the police. We all know how incredibly hard it is to report a rape and the facts speak for themselves, aprox 85,000 rapes a year, 5-15% are reported, of those reported rapes, only 6% get a conviction. This is a fucking travesty but it seems like it's easier to get a conviction for a false rape allegation than get a conviction for a devastating, life altering crime? Something is very wrong here...

www.theguardian.com/law/2014/dec/01/109-women-prosecuted-false-rape-allegations

Oh and last thing, false rape allegations are aprox 2% of all reported allegations, similar to other types of crime.

Confuddled, can't believe someone here said that to you. What a fucking ridiculous statement.

It's one thing to say you can't name someone a rapist if they have not been found guilty (I'd disagree personally...) but completely ludicrous to say that you can't say you've been raped unless a court has deemed it so. FGS. Must have been mistaken about my rapes too in that case

"Does a woman's testimony not count as evidence any more?"

The line you quoted I wasn't even referring to rape- I posted "allegations of less serious crimes".

"A rape charge does not mean the man's name will be in the paper, and is not a life ruining event In most cases."

Sure, a guy having everyone think he's a rapist doesn't affect his life in the slightest. Why some wrongly accused men attempt or successfully commit suicide I'll never know.

"You appear to be saying that a murder charge is less serious and less 'life ruining' than a rape charge"

I don't know where you got that from, but I wasn't comparing rape to murder.

Rape accusations don't ruin a man's life. Rape convictions don't either - look at Ched Evans and the support he's got. He's a convicted rapist. He was found guilty by a judge and jury - He'll end up playing again no doubt - he still has the support of his friends and family, while his victim hides with 3 different identities under her belt, away from her friends and family.

It is the lives of rape victims that are ruined - and they see justice in only a tiny percentage of cases.

Most victims of false accusations aren't rich and famous footballers

So they won't get any publicity then. There is rarely publicity around a rape accusation if the person isn't famous, or if it isn't an already infamous case like John Worboys.

False accusations - much rarer and so easy for the media to use against women.

Go to a local crown court - every day there are rape cases tried that gain no publicity whatsoever. It's only if the local press have an 'interesting' case that they bother to cover it.

I've read numerous times on this forum how men are in no position to dispute or criticise a woman's account of sexism/discrimination because it's just not possible to properly understand it unless you're a woman.

So why do women feel they can speak authoritatively on the extent to which a false rape allegation can ruin a man's life? Surely that kind if experience can only be appreciated by men?

It's the Lord McAlpine thing again really - who said there is nothing worse than being falsely accused of paedophilia. When really, being a victim of paedophilia is clearly far, far worse.

We're talking about a violent crime - a crime against the person, a violation - a crime that will leave physical and mental scars on the victim probably forever.

^ On a whole different scale of worse, to be frank.

What happened to Lord McAlpine was awful, it was in fact, accidental, an error. And one that was put right. A traumatised victim was mistaken, not vindictive.

But I think the victim was always in a worse position than Lord McAlpine. His entire life was affected.

I'm not saying they're equal.

Being raped is probably the most awful thing I can imagine and I feel sorry for people who have been.

But I'm sure being falsely accused of it is pretty bad too. I do think it ruins lives. Some people here are talking as though it's no big deal.

I don't think anyone's said it's no big deal - just that it is not comparable to being an actual victim of this violent crime.

I think people are underestimatimg or understating just how big a deal it is though.

Alao, in individual cases of successfully prosecuted false accusations, there was no rape, and in those particular cases the man's plight is certainly worse than the woman's.

You're wrong - in many 'false accusations' scenarios a rape did take place and it was a case of mistaken identity (often not even on the say-so of the victim herself.)

So the victim was still a victim.

Deliberately malicious allegations against a named person are in fact a small proportion of the 2-3% of all reported rapes that are counted in the false allegation statistics.

The police/CPS also have form for pursuing a false allegations/perverting the course of justice charge where they believe the victim was genuine, but the victim has just tried to drop the charges - often due to pressure from the accused or the accused's family.

But that doesn't mean it was a false accusation - just that the victim couldn't stand to go through the legal process of a rape conviction.

I agree that those cases are wrong. Nobody should be prosecuted for dropping a case.

I should have specified that I was referring to malicious accusations, where the only victim is the man.

In those cases, it is a false dichotomy to compare the suffering of these men to rape victims.

Furthermore, my original point was not about which is worse. But just that it's hypocrisy for women to say men can't comment authoritatively on female oppression or other feminist issues, but they can comment on the uniquely male issue of being falsely accused of rape.

It is indeed - as false as comparing the problem of malicious allegations (rare) as equal to the plight of rape victims (a substantial proportion of women.)

Men are more likely to be rape victims of other men than falsely accused of rape.

You should be out campaigning against men entitled to force sex on unwilling men, rather than on the false allegations bandwagon, prashad.

You're statistically more likely to be the victim of the former, rather than the latter.

We actually don't know just how common false rape allegations are.

If a rape allegation goes to court and ends in a not guilty verdict, we just don't know if that was a rape that failed to end in conviction, or a false rape allegation that wasn't proven as a false allegation.

All stats are based on the assumption that all cases that end in "not guilty" are in fact genuine rape reports where the accused should be guilty, but we don't know for sure.

And like I said, for a false rape accusation to be counted it must be proven to be a false accusation and the accuser must be proven to be lying (unless he/she admits to making a false report).

Welcome to Mumsnet, Fiyyase. You may wish to read this for background:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/13/false-allegations-rape-domestic-violence-rare

Fiyasse "some sort of evidence" includes testimony. Testimony is pretty much essential for most prosecutions. If you were robbed on the street and you could identify the individual but he wasn't found to have your possessions on him, your testimony would be "some sort of evidence".

What other evidence are you expecting in a rape trial where the accused does not deny that sex took place?

So many of the problems about the way rape is treated by the criminal justice system could be solved or reduced at least if we didn't have the adversarial system.

If we had an inquisitorial system where the job of all the people in court was to arrive at the truth then we wouldn't have aggressive cross-examinations of victims. We wouldn't have a CPS whose job it is to get rape convictions and so don't take on cases where they don't have a 'realistic chance' of getting one to avoid ruining their figures. Judges or investigating magistrates could be trained in dealing with the specific issues around rape and sexual assault. Police officers might attempt to actually discover the truth of a situation rather than only trying to accumulate evidence one way or the other. Victims might begin to feel as though they were taken seriously. And the broader public would probably start to think that men who had been convicted of rape were actually rapists.

No system is perfect but the one we have now is broken.

Yes, MyEmpireOfDirt, you're right. And I can't see lawyers changing their game for anyone. Your ideas are more realistic.