Ffs rape trials

MIdgebabe · 2018-09-24T21:28:20+00:00

first we hadn't lowmconviction rates because he juries don't want to harm a young mans future, poor petums , and now this. Have things always been this bad for women... we carry on making slow but steady progress 2 steps forward one step back. [[https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/sep/24/prosecutors-rape-cases-cps-crown-prosecution-service-conviction-rates]]

FermatsTheorem · 24/09/2018 23:00

Oh great. So we're back to "no-criming" rape complaints are we, to make the CPS stats look better? Fantastic... not.

FermatsTheorem · 25/09/2018 16:23

It just gets worse and worse.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/25/revealed-uk-police-demanding-access-data-potential-rape-victims

So - ever clicked on a magazine article about rough sex. Forget reporting a rape, it can't be prosecuted now.

Ever talked to your best friend, in what you thought was a confidential exchange of emails, about a bad sex experience and how you felt really uncomfortable about it, but you supposed it wasn't rape really? Forget reporting a rape, it can't be prosecuted now.

Ever clicked on a fanfiction about a rape fantasy? Forget reporting a rape, it can't be prosecuted now.

Ever looked at pink fluffy handcuffs on the Anne Summers website just for a bit of a laugh with your mates. In your cache now. Forget reporting a rape, it can't be prosecuted now.

I forget which feminist writer it was said "rape might as well be legal, given the hurdles there are to bringing a case." She was right.

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 25/09/2018 16:44

It is just appalling. I have no words really. Yes it seems as though rape might as well be legal.

birdbandit · 25/09/2018 17:01

Another problem:

That report to the police you were going to make about a bloke wanking in the changing room?

Forget it.

That bloke tells the court he's a woman and that you're the perv for going on about her genitals.

AngelsSins · 25/09/2018 17:02

The message is loud and clear “women, shut up about rape”.

It sickens me that every detail of the victims life, every aspect of her sexuality is put on show, her underwear passed around juries, but they won’t be told if the potential rapist has previously attacked women.

Either both their lives should be fully exposed to the jury, or neither.

WrongOnTInternet · 25/09/2018 18:13

I've been concerned from the start of all this far-left-wing trans guff that the next thing will be the decriminalisation of rape. Poor men have feelings don't you know, they just need to do these things and women have to be nice and understand.

OK, we are losing the right to bodily autonomy. What do we do about it?

UpstartCrow · 25/09/2018 19:23

If you are over the age of 59, your rape is not included in the national statistics.
Men dont have to put up with this shit.

FloralBunting · 25/09/2018 19:26

UpstartCrow, really?! I had no idea.

Original poster

MIdgebabe · 25/09/2018 19:30

I think that most of the ordinary population currently have more respect for women. I think most men disapprove of rape, although some wonder if women accuse men falsely

Which is why I think that articles like Fermat highlighted, whilst being horrific, are really useful

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FermatsTheorem · 25/09/2018 19:36

I'd agree with that summing up, Midge. In my experience, decent men will acknowledge what the worst among their number are capable of. (Apart from anything else, they're privy to the "locker room banter" - they hear the rape jokes and the boasting and the "no means yes and yes means anal" stuff - and they make judgements on the sort of men saying that stuff. )

ToeToToe · 25/09/2018 19:36

I've talked about my friends rape trial on here a fair bit - I was a witness for the prosecution (only in a fairly minor way).

She was on trial, not him.

There was a horrific amount of evidence against him though - an incredible amount. Including injuries - which she had to go through humiliating medical exams for, and including stuff he'd written online. She was lucky enough to get a conviction because of this - and maybe due to the fact that she is whiter than white, she really is - they had very little dirt to throw at her - or maybe the luck of having a good jury. I don't know.

They put her through hell in the witness box, over 2 whole days.

It's utterly shit for victims. Even if they get to court, and that's a minority.

People believe the men.

FermatsTheorem · 25/09/2018 19:39

As an aside - I miss Keir Starmer as DPP. He did loads to work towards a better framework for rape prosecutions. And it's all being undone. Partly by the new DPP, and partly by police cock-ups on non-disclosure of evidence, which are somehow being turned from "failures in police procedure" into "engrained belief that all women lie."

seafret · 25/09/2018 19:40

WTAF???

But a man's alarming array of porn-rape online activities and the knife under his pillow is seen as not connected to him killing a woman being killed by his knife whilst he is strangling and having sex with/ raping her.

FFS.

ToeToToe · 25/09/2018 19:47

Keir Starmer was really, really great.

He commissioned that report into so-called "false claims" that verified false claims are very, very few and far between (but serious when they do happen) We owe him a debt.

However, how easy his work is being unravelled by people who see rape as just a crime of silly women making a fuss about nothing

I'm raging at the state of women's rights right now. Raging.

ToeToToe · 25/09/2018 19:49

I hardly dare type this - but a man can rape & murder a woman at knife point in her home now, and get away with saying it was a "sex game gone wrong". He'll get an "oops - 3yrs inside" and that's all.

We should be very afraid.

Ereshkigal · 25/09/2018 19:50

As an aside - I miss Keir Starmer as DPP. He did loads to work towards a better framework for rape prosecutions. And it's all being undone. Partly by the new DPP, and partly by police cock-ups on non-disclosure of evidence, which are somehow being turned from "failures in police procedure" into "engrained belief that all women lie."

YY.

Ereshkigal · 25/09/2018 19:51

If you are over the age of 59, your rape is not included in the national statistics.

What is the fucking justification for that!?!

ToeToToe · 25/09/2018 19:53

I didn't know that age 59 thing, is that actually real?

Ereshkigal · 25/09/2018 19:54

It just gets worse and worse.

I don't have the words to express how I feel about that link

Pandamodium · 25/09/2018 20:08

That is horrendous. I have no words.

Original poster

MIdgebabe · 25/09/2018 21:20

I think the stats capture sexual offences between ages 16 and 60 in any one year

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/sexualoffencesinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2017

So maidens and hags excluded.

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Ereshkigal · 25/09/2018 21:22

Why though?

Ereshkigal · 25/09/2018 21:26

Ok so the ONS link says that last year they raised the self completion module maximum age to 74. Presumably before that was 59. And they reference "between 16 and 59" a lot.

sayhelloandwavegoodbye · 25/09/2018 21:27

It's the Crime Survey of England and Wales - it measure prima fasci data, so it's not crime reported to the police it's self-reported.

You'd have to look into their data collection methodology but I think ethically asking anyone under the age of 16 if they'd been subjected to a sexual assault would be a no no. There will be a rationale for the upper age limit.

That doesn't mean it's fine that we don't collect the data, obviously it isn't ideal. But a rape reported to the police will be recorded and crimed for someone over the age of 59 just as it would be for someone under that age limit.

Original poster

MIdgebabe · 25/09/2018 21:33

But they use the survey rather than reported to police figures because they know people are not reporting to the police

And clearly there needs to be a mechanism to collect data on sexual abuse of under 16's which ( according to aibu ) seems to be dismissed by schools as normal behaviour

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