Met Police change rape guidelines - shocker of a quote from cressida dick

[TheDukesOfHazzard]

A few articles today - this evening standard one is not paywalled.

It's interesting. Partly because the lack of disclosure was across all crimes, but the press focus in on rape (most of us will know why).

Secondly because the "We believe you" thing was - on MN at least - never about unquestioningly believing a report at all times no matter what. It was a reaction to two things:

• Cases where women (and chidlren, probabyl men too) had reported and the police said I don't believe you go away - Saville etc Warboys had this too
• Cases where a woman had reported a rape and immediately the police had started investigating her, and not investigating the actual crime she had reported at all

So the idea that they treat victims with dignity and respect and go and investigate is fine - I mean who wanted anything else

The part that concerns me A LOT is this at the end:

"She reportedly added: "And what might be a misunderstanding between two people, clumsy behaviour between somebody who fancies somebody else, is not a matter for the police.""

This (to me) is a clear reference to "date rape" / sexual assault when the victim knows the assailant, and it happens behind closed doors, isn't it? I can't see another reading of it.

WTF?

Women don't go to the police when they are raped FFS

She knows this.

The thing about past offences too, what is the impact there for historical CSA. Like the sports coach, these things often come out years later.

Sexual violence and sexual assault should not be conflated.

Can you explain please?

Sexual violence and sexual assault mean crimes that are motivated by sex as in intercourse.

Nothing to do with sex (m/f) or gender.

Much of it is committed by one sex though and rape law is specific around penis (which used to mean male perp, now, whatever, who cares about stats).

Yeah I don't really understand that comment either

I know all that Dukes. I'm not disagreeing with any of it. I think she means men making clumsy passes at women by, for e.g, moving in for a snog or groping them. Groping them being obviously entirely unacceptable.

I think she should be much more careful what she says. I think the climate at the moment is appalling and her words need to be judged against that, I think that some people will want to read this as 'see, this whole business has gone too far'. I think all of that means this is a terrible, ill judged statement and sets us back a long way.

But do I think she's saying that date rape isn't a police matter? No, I don't read it like that.

I don't think she means that. I do think her choice of words leaves space for people to infer it, though.

I don't think that police make statements, however casual sounding, without an awful lot of thought.

If it is open to interpretation then that is deliberate.

Are large numbers of women reporting men to the police for moving in for a snog and stopping when she moved away? I suspect not.

Ok. Well you asked a couple of times if your reading was 'off' initially. And I think it is - a bit. And I thought that was helpful since you had asked.

But I also think it's an awful statement so we can agree there.

Chaos: "They're justifying a resource decision by trivialising the whole issue."

Absolutely my thought on reading the article. The police have fucked up a number of prosecutions through straightforward incompetence, and brought a number of prosecutions which should never have been made and which collapsed at the eleventh hour due to extra evidence (which the police had lost/sat on) not being disclosed - i.e. more police incompetence. And now they're trying to shift the blame around. "It wasn't our incompetence, it was that some nasty women lie, so we're not even going to try to pursue date rape cases any more - look, no more police incompetence, because if we don't do anything at all we can't do that thing incompetently."

Yes true Certain.

I just can't imagine what else she means though that the police are actually having to spend significant resource investigating.

It's a real worry.

Maybe she will clarify.

Thanks though and sorry I argued back knee jerk!

I really don't trust the police and about more than this so there's that on top of the feminist thing.

Sexual violence:

kareningalasmith.com/counting-dead-women/

rapecrisis.org.uk/

www.womensaid.org.uk/

www.refuge.org.uk/

Sexual assault:

I don't know

Why don't you tell me OP what comes under this heading?

All I know is that you cannot conflate the two.

Oh god no don't apologise for disagreeing! Like I say I might be being a bit naive here .

It reminds me of when David Cameron said he was going to make child poverty a thing of the past and then literally did this by getting rid of the child poverty index.

Ereshkigal

• wow and yes

I wonder if there will further on this - are any of you twitterers? Is there anything on there or anyhting? (don't know how it works maybe I need an account!)

WRT to the ABH / breaking nose issue...

The thing I found most disturbing about my rape (and I speak ONLY for myself here, no other victim) is that he didn't use protection, ejaculated, put me at risk off STDs and did actually impregnate me.

So he physically altered my biological state (non-pregnant to pregnant) without my consent.

But, you know, he was a friend I'd had (protected) sex with before.

The decision not to charge in my case includes the words "he would have no reason to believe that she did not want sex again as she had agreed earlier in the evening, although this cannot be presumed it is a reasonable assumption"

No reason. I consented to protected sex earlier in the evening. Therefore there is NO REASON for him to assume I wouldn't want to be impregnated by him.

'AIBU to think that If you reported a burglary you'd expect to be believed'. How does that sound?

No. At the reporting stage the police should not assume you are telling the truth or lying.

Will they apply this dismissive policy to children who are raped by family members?

Dukes of hazard - couldn't find any outrage on twitter just people approving. The only Ones not agreeing were people who mentioned Asian grooming gang victims who were not believed.
It seems you are only believed you are a sex abuse victim if your attacker is Asian or Muslim or both

Only in rape cases do we have the consent issue.

An intruder comes into the house. You hear him rooting through your belongings and stealing things from your home. You do nothing. Did you consent? Because you said and did nothing?

You are walking home. A person jumps out at you and demands you hand over your wallet/purse. You hand it over. You don't scream. You don't say no. Just give him the wallet. Did you consent to being mugged?

You are jumped on by 2 men. They beat you, and then leave on the ground, battered, bruised and bleeding. You didn't fight back. Maybe you enjoyed the beating? You didn't scream for help, because you had frozen. Did you just consent to a beating?

Only in rape cases do we have the scenario of: why didn't you scream, why didn't you say no, why didn't you run away, why didn't you bite him, why were you there in the first place, what were you wearing, did you encourage him in any way, you must have known what would happen at a house party, maybe you agreed to have sex then regretted it later......etc etc etc etc

It's bizarre isn't it. No other crime is treated in this way.

whereverialaymyhat I am so very very sorry for what happened to you. men who rape (IME) don't use condoms

wherever that's so disturbing

that consensual protected sex early in the evening meant that he could have a reasonable belief that you consented to unprotected sex later in the evening, which is kind of beside the point as you didn't consent.

The way they have put that seems very contradictory it doesn't make sense.

Totally >> thank you for looking on twitter, maybe it will pick up after the bank hols

Thank you gluteus, weirdly....I was actually burgled once, by someone I knew. I knew she was a dodgy character. I knew she had keys to my house. She took something valuable of mine while I wasn't at home to guard it. She didn't even leave the property with it, but hid it in the attic so that I would never find it.

She was convicted of burglary.

Nobody ever questioned what I did to bring it on myself or lead her to the assumption that she could take my things. The law was incredibly black and white.

DukeofHazzard, that is the exact wording.

It's been reviwed by TWO inspectors.

It's not a PRESUMPTION, but a reasonable assumption apparently.

"He would have no reason to believe she did not want sex again."

The previous posiiton where the police turned away people who reported sex offences, or immediately started to investigate them was not reasonable, @lass. That is why we had we believe you on MN - because the initial reaction from society and the authorities was that the woman (or older girl) was lying / exaggerating / malicious / etc.

I had no idea that the police had taken a line that with this ONE crime they always totally believed that the report was true always and never ever questioned it etc. In fact >> I don't believe that at all. If a person went in and gave 13 different contradictory stories they wouldn't simultanesouly believe all of them and proceed as best they could.

I suspect that they have said they are "changing" this guidance due to the recent cuts and them fucking up cases left right and centre. Note that the lack of disclosure has affected all crimes, but the media have only focussed on sex offences, and the police have only announced this wrt sex offences ie that if it's someone you know, don't bother.