All current rape and sexual assault cases to be reviewed - BBC

[UpABitLate]

here

This raises a massive amount of questions and will be taken by many quarters to mean that most accusations are malicious and that lots of men are in prison for nothing / can be sent to prison on a "woman's word" (the evidence is fitted to make sure of that).

There is a line in the article which says:

"It also begs the question of why the review is to rape and sexual assault cases when many believe the problems of disclosure are systemic, he added."

I think this just shows up that our justice system has deep issues and worst in the area of sexual offences. We seem unable to "get it right" and the entire thing is already balanced on a foundation of laws evolved from property law, a societal tendancy to disbelieve victims, and here by procedural cock-ups.

I also note that new evidence that weakens cases does not mean it didn't happen - but of course this is how it will be taken. Undermining victims massively.

And yes - why only these types of cases when the problem is systemic? Because of an underlying perception, again, that women and girls lie (them being the majority of victims in court).

I think we need an overhaul of how approach sex crime. Trying to tackle it in our adversarial system, with the cultural underpinnings we have, is just not working. These crimes are effectively legal, the difficult in prosecuting is so high. It's only really if there's lots of evidence of other simultaneous crimes (other physical harm from violence, threats with weapons that are found, murder) that our laws are suitable.

Other countries have an inquisitorial approach, maybe we need to look at that.

And the agencies involved in all of this need to sort their shit out. On the one hand we have withheld evidence, on the other hand we have warboys. The system is not working for lots of people.

A massive problem with rape cases in England and Wales is the amount of political interference. There are too many parliamentary/judicial/investigatory bodies giving contradictory information, and each having their own view on how to proceed. (For example HMIC dictated that officers' starting point should be believing the victim at point of contact, the college of policing give different guidelines) Politicians have become increasingly involved esp with historical allegations (I wonder why?) and they too are ordering departments to change the way crimes are investigated. There are far too many bodies playing political football with rape, and not enough sitting down and working out a fairer and more just methodology for both victims and suspects alike.

The last two DPP's have put enormous pressure on police forces to bring more rape cases to court, at the same time large scale changes to officer numbers and bail act changes, have put huge pressures on officers trying to investigate these cases. It's pretty common for a DC to have 15-20 rape investigations on the go at the same time. Rules on disclosure and file prep change on what seems almost a monthly basis. It is really fucking hard to juggle that many balls and not drop them occasionally. There's waiting lists for tech individuals to look at computers and mobile phones of up to 6 months. It's not just a case of reading 400 pages of text messages, they've got to be downloaded and presented in an official way, and exhibited so. I can see why disclosure is fucked up, it's very unlikely officers are with holding information deliberately, especially since the relevancy test is so subjective, it's simple human error.

There's ways to change this but it will require a fuck tonne of money, and this government are never going to pay it

@PatriarchyPersonified can’t you see how it’s sensible to at least be a little bit compassionate in discussions surrounding rape? If not can’t you see how your desire to get a point across with little or no empathy for who you are participating with serves as a microcosm of the entire problem?

I know far more men, women and adults who were children who have been raped and abused than I do men who have been the poor victims of malicious allegations. In fact, anecdata alert, I’ve never met a man who has told me they’ve been a poor victim of malicious allegation. Funny how every fucker on the internet knows swathes of them.

whenireported all the best and I believe you. Axegrinders don’t want to listen to people have actually had to live through as it doesn’t fit their narrative.

masterwu great post. Another example of the effects of austerity

handbag I get the impression this is one of the things some men talk about amongst themselves. "You know Paul, yeah, Paul went out last week and picked up a bird in a club. They had a great time, he left at 3 and she was out for the count. Next thing you know coppers are at the door saying he raped her! She says she doesn't remember taking him home. It's bollocks though, Paul says she was a right bunny boiler. Kept going on about wanting his phone number/where did he work. That's why he snuck out. She's obviously trying to get revenge. Poor old Paul".

No critical thinking at all. Obviously though men maintain rationality and objectivity at all times so it's not necessary.

wheni ignore the rape apologists on here. Some men don't actually give a shit about victims, as it's too challenging to their narrative. There's a word for that, begins with M

It's possible the reason PP doesn't react to posts from rape victims is that h doesn't believe them / or is not prepared to listen or believe unless there has been a conviction in a court of law + probably he's read about it and agrees with the jury.

I think it's interesting to note that with #metoo there has been an awful lot of people telling women to shut up and they aren't allowed to say anything unless there's been a conviction.

Few points there.
The first is of course that most women in #metoo aren't naming anyone, so why on earth shouldn't they say anything
The second is that lots of women talk about poeple they know but few other people do - so "a cousin and his friends raped me when I was 6" was one I've seen. Most people will not be able to identify anyone. I can't see anything wrong with this either

Where someone is named it gets interesting. I suppose we're into libel territory (or slander - whichever). The background to this is that women don't report (we all know why not) and there are incredibly large numbers of us who have not reported and therefore it's just been lurking there as something that made us upset / angry / fearful / traumatised / in pain etc but we have no mechanism to deal with it. We know the police are pointless with most of this stuff. Especially when the men involved are rich and powerful.

I suppose the experience is just so different as so many women have had so much shit done to them that they see all this and they think thank fuck for that, finally we are able to talk about it.

While some men see it as a frightening uncontrollable situation where anyone can say anything and who is going to be next.

This is underpinned by the fact that women know how common it is. Even the women who don't like #metoo don't like it because they think it's lies - like the French women who wrote the letter - they believe it 100% but think women should put up with it and what's more smile while they do (ie go back to how it was before).

Meanwhile as we know men as a group seem oblivious to the extent of creepy experiences & worse women have with men, starting when we're young. How they can be oblivious when it seems to go in a 2 or 3 year cycle of things being in the press (stats / reports / campaigns etc) but nevertheless they still seem awfully surprised whenever this conversation takes place and that surprise turns very quickly to disbelief. I think probably because they simply don't want to believe it because that would mean they'd have to understand society in a different way and other stuff that would not be comfortable. So we see this very quick reaction thing >> OMG how awful >>> no hold on this is silly it can't be true most of it is lies exaggeration overreaction attention seeking >> shut up now.

We need to change the way that men see all this, otherwise we will never get anywhere. Sadly, I don't think that they (as a group) are very up for that, so, we're never going to get anywhere.

I think that lots of men do think that women and children are OK collateral damage in maintaining the masculine storyline (strong, protective, kind etc) but they don't frame it like that, they just write all but the most extreme cases with perfect victims off as liars / asking for it etc.

"Even the women who don't like #metoo don't like it because they think it's lies - like the French women who wrote the letter - they believe it 100% "

I mean those women didn't dislike it because they believed there were lies - they did believe it 100% but they thought women should not take it so seriously.

When you look at the treatment in the system of victims of CSA then you begin to see this in action.

Girls who have been groomed and are being pimped described as "child prostitutes" in reports and the concern being more around their "wayward" behaviour than trying to protect them.

We are deemed to be competent actors when it comes to sex very young, while for men it seems much older. You see court cases where children - girls 12, 13 are being described as "seducers" of grown men, that sort of thing. It's another highly damaging narrative and one that we don't seem to be changing very fast. Fact is that large numbers of men are attracted to teen girls, and teen girls are often pretty easy to manipulate. We need to protect them more.

Most women know that street harassment is worst during school years, again something that men always seem surprised about and then they get all why didn't you go to the police... And of course we all know why not.

I do think that really given that most men (thankfully) have very little experience of this stuff, they need to listen to us when we talk about it. This stuff makes our lives miserable. It is not getting better. And now we have warboys, we have this review, we have things like that girl who was groomed and sent a pic to an adult being threatened with action by the police with no mention of going after the man (I still don't know what happened with that in the end, what happened to "public interest"???) which all feel like the authorities very much wanting to push things back to how they were. The numbers of reports now are too high for them to deal with and I suspect it's still just scratching the surface. Attitudes in many forces are still hostile to victims of sex offences (unless they are really proper extremely violent stranger attacks), they want to get on with "proper" crime. And it's difficult, and messy, and takes resources they want to spend elsewhere. Things were much easier when women (and children and men) didn't report this stuff, and they only had to investigate when someone was dead as a result.

I'm not feeling very positive about this at the moment.

The other thing is men always say don't bring children into this, I'm talking about women.

They don't understand that it is a continuum of behaviour that we encounter that starts when we are children. So to us, it is all part and parcel.

That’s why I think it’s important to pursue civil cases, because ok a man might be found innocent in a criminal case, but the standard of proof is much higher.

Once a man loses a civil case for rape then there is no issue with reporting him as “the rapist ” in subsequent reporting. This will have a snowball effect meaning people are going to have a much harder time of defending perpetrators in discussions if they have lost a civil case.

Yes it feels like a bit not great taking outside of the criminal system BUT I agree that it's better, "balance of probabilities" is a lower bar. There have been things I've read saying that because of all the cultural stuff around sex offences, the bar is not "beyond any reasonable doubt" but "beyond any doubt at all" for lots of jurors.

Have many women had success with this option?

Could there be a fund? I would contribute.

If there were enough successful civil cases, it would also start to shift the narrative that women are liars and that not guilty means innocent...

Which would then loop around to improving prospects with criminal cases.

scotland recently

You see I bet if women started doing this a lot, I bet certain people would find "reasons" that it should be stopped.

england rape case civil court

So this:

"Lawyers for Dawes' estate, which is said to be worth £25m, argued that Ms Lawson had made up the story for financial gain. While admitting that the couple had had sex and used controlled drugs, they claimed Ms Lawson had consented and denied that she had suffered psychological trauma. But the judge, Mr Justice Eady, held that there was overwhelming evidence of Dawes' predatory behaviour towards women, and concluded that Ms Lawson was telling the truth."

The judge was able to make an informed view with all the evidence in front of him. I suppose this is the more "inquisitorial" approach that has been mentioned a few times.

I am glad she got justice one way or another but reading the impact on her, really massive impact. I hope things got better for her - this is from 11 years ago.

Dervel I suspect you're right.

And yes it does start when we're kids, often from men who are SUPPOSED to protect us.

Regarding patriarchy - come across him before, often posts on threads like this - make of that what you will, and make use of advanced search

upabitlate really interesting posts thank you

The whole reason I suggest civil cases is not an end point solution, but merely a first step in changing the cultural conversation. I have floated the idea of a charity before, but have no idea how to set one up.

Another possibility are legal firms specialising in rape/sexual assault cases kind of like the no win no fee personal injury ones. As distasteful as I find this to type, but the sheer number of rapes would make this a veritable goldmine. The downside being they would be unlikely to pursue men with no assets, but it is at least a start.

I think it's high time another outcome of a court case was introduced as well as convicted and acquitted - not proven. Not proven would not mean that the accused didn't do it, as happens now. If people get off/acquitted 'on a technicality' it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't do it, although at the moment it does. I think a third outcome of 'not proven' would be really useful.

My normal eloquence has deserted me today, apologies for the mangled writing!

So you are basically removing the principle of innocent until proven guilty ? Disagree that is a good idea.

Princess - where on earth in these last few posts have you read that?

Arken - that is a judgement they have in scotland already I think?

"Not proven"sounds to me equal to "we have no idea" which I suppose is so often true

Princess well they use it in scotland, where they have 3 verdicts they can give. From wiki

"The result is the modern perception that the "not proven" verdict is an acquittal used when the judge or jury does not have enough evidence to convict but is not sufficiently convinced of the accused person's innocence to bring in a "not guilty" verdict. Essentially, the judge or jury is unconvinced that the suspect is innocent, but has insufficient evidence to the contrary."

If you don't like it, I'm sure the scots will be interested to hear from you.

Princess I'd still be interested in where you got this from in the recent conversation:

"So you are basically removing the principle of innocent until proven guilty ?"