Prosecutions for rape accusations

[Offred]

Was reading this just now;

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

Two things jump out. One that there is no rule restricting the police from treating someone making an accusation as a suspect in a different crime, relating to the same circumstances, of perverting the course of justice, which obviously has the implication referred to in the article, that the rape claim will not be properly investigated as it is already being treated as the basis for a different investigation.

The second that how in the hell are police so frequently 'proving' that the woman has made a false accusation? I mean we are always being told that rape prosecutions fail because of a lack of evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a rape took place, how are police finding sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has not raped someone AND that they went to a police station and deliberately made an unambiguously false complaint knowing and understanding what they were doing?!

There is no reason why the police have to investigate the accusation of rape in order to obtain a conviction for a false accusation

Like I've already said, yes there is unless the evidence she is guilty is overwhelming. Otherwise the defence will counter this massive hole in the case.

For example:

everything was caught on camera with voice recordings giving consent.

They might not investigate the accused then would they, why would they? Why would a clearly innocent person be put through an investigation? It's clear she is lying.

It seems you want the man investigated either way.

But what can the defence use to counter this if the rape accusation has not been investigated by the police?

Women are being charged, prosecutions are being accepted by the CPS and women are being convicted despite defence evidence like numerous and independent medical etc testimony that are consistent with rape. Post report mental states are being used against women as evidence by the police of them being liars depite medical testimony that is consistent with them suffering from rape trauma and revictimisation from being prosecuted.

If everything was caught on camera then that would be the accusation having been investigated.

That is not what is actually happening in some of these prosecutions/convictions.

Jesus christ on a bike.

The defence can use the fact he wasn't investigated as a way of achieving reasonable doubt. How do they know he hasn't done it? How do they know she's lying without ruling him out? The jury will question this.

Unless there is solid evidence against her.

And after a quick look online (not a comprehensive one mind) it seems all women who were investigated for false accusation was done so after the man was investigated for rape - isn't that what you want?

Like I've said before, you seem to want different ways of achieving prosecution when it comes to these women.

Okay then, a text to say 'I'm going to lie about him raping me'. That isn't investigating the man is it.

Over in Manchester we have a rape referral centre. All women or men who make an allegation of having been raped are taken here / referred here to have evidence collected and to receive counselling. The rape crisis centre is independent of the police (although obviously they collect samples and evidence for the police). So it wouldn't matter what the police opinion is about whether a rape claim is genuine the evidence would still be collected. I'm not sure what happens in irger areas but the Manchester model is a good one.

No, I don't. It absolutely is not the case that all women were charged/prosecuted after investigation into the accusation.

I don't think it is fair to leave it up to defence/juries. No-one should even be charged without a proper investigation into the rape finding evidence that supports it being untrue. That isn't what is happening, sometimes it is, but cps are pursuing cases where the investigation has not been done.

Super - in some cases reported that happened but the evidence collected/testimony of the centres/practioners as to their professional opinions was ignored. If a number of professionals, independent of each other are saying their professional opinion is that the evidence they have seen is consistent with her story that should surely be enough to create reasonable doubt. But it hasn't always been enough.

The police do investigate the complainant's text messages as part of an investigation into a rape, often because they may form part of a case for prosecution. It's not true to say they don't look at the woman's texts unless they suspect her of lying.

And I agree that is the way things should happen. It isn't the way things have happened in some of the reported cases.

Add to that the fact you can't appeal unless there is new evidence... If the police don't bother to look at evidence you have given them or they use the evidence (which is often subjective where rape is concerned) as evidence for prosecution. Does someone have PTSD from rape or are they mentally ill and therefore a liar? Depends on how evidence collected is used. Judges and juries have not always objected to rape investigations not having been carried out and it is tough to prove they weren't done properly. Especially when there is a public interest factor which prevents questioning police procedure.

'The police would not investigate if there wasn't strong evidence suggesting lies' and 'CPS wouldn't prosecute if there wasn't a strong case' are biased judges and juries also suffer from.

And I agree that is the way things should happen. It isn't the way things have happened in some of the reported cases.

But investigations into all kinds of cases are sometimes not done properly and this impacts on the victims / accused. Rape is not unique in this.
I think 20 or so convictions of attempting to pervert the course of justice each year is a tiny number in comparison to the number of rape convictions. It doesn't suggest to me that there is widespread practice of rape accusations not being investigated because the police assume that women are lying.

I'm not going to argue this anymore because its clear you've made your mind up

I will say though that we aren't always privy to the ins and outs of a case. We don't always know what evidence was put forward. How much they had.

As someone who's been through the court system as a complainant and witness, I know only too well of people getting off for their wrong doings because of this flawed system.

So I find it hard to believe there's as many women being falsely prosecuted as you think.

There was a 17 year old in 2012 who was being prosecuted for false accusations, seemingly based on the idea that her having mental illness suggested she was a liar. The police never bothered to have her clothes tested despite her saying he had ejaculated on them.

It's only when a different team took over the case that they realised the clothes should have been tested before she was accused of lying. The clothes were tested, his semen was found, he had denied any sexual contact with her and he was convicted. She 'won' a £20k compensation pay out. It is not an absolute that if her prosecution had gone to court the clothes would have been tested. That's what should happen but it is also what should have happened before the CPS took the decision to prosecute and it didn't.

I've said it's no about numbers of prosecutions but about lack of safeguards against spurious ones.

I don't think a lot of women are either, I think 1 is 1 too many. Especially when it is happening because of preventable factors involved in the ways the cases are being investigated.

Sorry only read half of it.

I think you need to disconnect the two:

• Should people who make malicious allegations be prosecuted? Yes and for all crimes, and I would say that the malicious part is important rather than confused / mistaken / severe mental health probs, eg a person who is very unstable and reports that something has happened but does not identify a specific person etc & the motivation is clearly due to their mental health or other problems

• The problem with society / the police / the authorities / the media etc believing rape myths, victim blaming & so on. Some of this is hard to control but some of it with people doing their jobs is surely addressable (is that a word?) and arguably a change in attitude from "the authorities" will have a knock-on effect on the rest of society. Many reports from various organisations eg the Met, the CPS and so forth have said they have severe and major problems now and historically with all sex crimes, how they investigated, bo-criming, treatment of victims and so forth and even possibly in some cases colluding and cover up (current high-profile investigation who knows what will come out of it). So there can be no denying that there have been really major problems, which they are trying to address, but it's institutional so hard to change I imagine

The toxicity comes in that the media especially like to highlight cases of false complaints, even they highlight when a case is ongoing and the defence is she's lying (and then if he's found guilty it is buried at the back IYSWIM) so it reinforces rape-myth attitudes in society and that of course impacts across the board.

In addition you have a small number of frankly terrifying cases where women have been treated appallingly and it's made the news, on top of a horrifying number of stories over the years of people who were treated like crap / accused of lying / told to fuck off and so forth.

Put it together and it's not an encouraging atmosphere for victims of sex crimes.

Where can we go from here?

There is a LOT coming out at the moment that shows just the appalling scope and breadth of how those in authority and who should have helped, have let down victims of sex offences.

This has made it headline news and encouraged others to come forward. And maybe a shift in the public about a particular cohort of victim being actually quite likely to be telling the truth as opposed to quite likely to by lying before this.

Report after report about the police handling rape particularly badly, high profile fuck-ups. Might encourage people to understand that actually the police are fallible and they need to improve, rather than just oh they must be right.

And of course people with an interest to keep on raising it and raising it, providing support for women, looking into cases where women say they have been treated badly and so forth.

There's probably more but my fingers are getting tired and the kids need their hair washed!

It's a depressing but interesting topic and one that is getting more attention - 2 decades ago no-one gave a fuck now at least people are talking about it.

Just one last reminder about the woman who was sent to prison for "falsely retracting a rape complaint" and her children who IIRC had been privy to violence in the home were left with the man which afterwards social services said oh whoops yeah that probably shouldn't have happened.

"The authorities" are by no means infallible and their actions don't always make sense.

Yes, totally agree with that. It is certainly a positive thing to be questioning these things. I don't think it is adequate to assume they are being done properly because police, the CPS and courts should be doing them properly. Questioning and investigating whether they are is a check on poor practice.

YY the evidence of poor police practice and much much worse around this is overwhelming.

What gets me is that every time it's "lessons learned" and then exactly the same thing happens all over again.

I find the whole situation horrifying.

I know I wouldn't report a rape if it happened to me, but what if someone I loved was raped? Would I, could I, encourage them to report? How could I demonstrate I believed them otherwise?

I actually find it a positive thing that given the recent and long history and the lack of safeguards the fact it is not happening more is a good reflection on general police attitudes to prosecuting rape relative to the past. I just think that it can and should be vastly improved and the questioning is part of that. I dislike the idea that someone's research should be treated as supicious just because it questions the judicial system.

The double reversal case was technically correct but I think it was contrary to the public interest to pursue it.

It does seem that for many of the cases in the report, it was the accuser who ended up stating their claim was false. Yes, as the report acknowledges, this needs to be treated with care in case it's due to intimidation, but I don't think the police are obliged to continue to investigate the claim if they believe in the retraction.