Rape victims must hand over phone or police won't pursue crime

[RedToothBrush]

Both Independent and Times carrying story on their front page.

This is going to backfire spectacularly.

It's voluntary.

Except that it isn't really, is it? Any Defence team will use any refusal to hand over personal technology in court against the victim, asking the jury to make of that what it will.

The whole process of rape and justice is a complete violation of females at every stage.

Agree Jacky. The court process isn't called the second rape for nothing.

How is it voluntary

In the headlines and news ive heard it been said that if you dont hand it over they may drop the case

Thats not voluntary...thats bribery and coercion!

Which is ironic as the police are doing it

In that case, it was a man who was the victim.

Does that make a difference?

*In that case, it was a man who was the victim.

Does that make a difference?*

I daresay his "knickers" would never be displayed in court and passed around jury members.

I daresay his "sexual and / or medical and / or social history" would not be used to try to assassinate his character in the face of the jury.

Yes it is voluntary. And if you don't they are likely to drop the case. So no really voluntary if you want your report to mean anything.

The reason the Police are asking is because cases are collapsing a court. The Police are in charge of disclosing "Any information that could undermine the prosecution". The vast majority of times their is nothing at all.

A text message between a victim and an offender won't collapse a case. It just needs disclosing to the defence. Not disclosing it will collapse the case. It will be seen as the Police withholding evidence.

The amount of hours and paperwork it takes to get a rape allegation to court is immense. The Police are trying to their best to get a conviction. Getting a case to court and having it fail on procedural technicalities is horrific for the victim.

The reason the Police are asking is because cases are collapsing a court.

There has to be a better way that requisitioning someone's personal data for indefinite purpose and indefinite time to be scrutinised and shared by persons unknown.

Surely, questioning any accused male or victim about their use of their technology is enough? Beyond that, is it not possible to interrogate any data with the victim or accused male in the room?

Right lads all you need to do now to prevent a rape conviction is to get the girl's number before, send her a few friendly texts to make sure you can say she was up for it and voila! you're free to rape with impunity!

Given the patriarchal power and control, sexism and misogyny within which all females are forced to live in our society, maybe the way ahead is to remove all males from every aspect of every situation involving sexual offence against females? Leave it to the women to work through the justice process?

Only males could have come up with these intrusive and violating policies.

Only males could have come up with these intrusive and violating policies. I’m not sure, theft are a lot of Aunt Lydia’s about.

I've been on a number of twitter threads about this today. It's outrageous. Not least because, as number of posters have pointed out here, there's no real description or explanation of what the data is used for or how much of the data the police (and defence attorneys) can access.

For example, I hate it, but I can see how if the perpetrator claims that the victim liked it and sent text messages to that effect subsequently, it might be considered relevant information, with a desire to check on the victim and perpetrator's phone by police/prosecuting attorneys to see if this is true. But that's a very slim, specific use of data in a very specific situation.

And the problem is that we all know that when the phone data is downloaded and there is, for example, a history of the woman sexting with multiple men, then immediately it will be assumed that she is to blame for her rape.

It's also so frustrating that the main reason for the phone thing appears to be to check that the woman isn't lying. Because obviously, women lie about being raped ALL THE TIME. [sarcasm alert].

I have a little bit of sympathy for police wanting specific data to prove/disprove specific facts - eg location, post-incident commentary etc. But the threatening tone, the scope of what they can do and years and years of experience of how women who are raped are blamed make this completely unpalatable.

What's wrong about this is that text messages between a victim and her rapist would actually collapse a case, when any communication or activities or behaviours in the lead up to a rape are utterly irrelevant!

That's the point. The point is

She. Didn't. Want. Sex. It was rape!
Nothing else is relevant.
She might be having sex once a year, every day with strangers, but if she doesn't want sex its rape.

How is this still being talked around and blamed attributed to victims.

It works extremely well the justice system to shut victims down.

Many victims will not fight, but lie still in confusion and fear, not say no, or push a rapist off them.

Any real man will tell you that lying still is not consent and not an enjoyable 'interaction' as theres no interaction just aggression.

It's the same with 99% of porn, its perpetrators in action.

It works extremely well the justice system to shut victims down.

Indeed .. it is a justice system designed by men for men.

And that is the core point.

This is why our justice system with regard to sexual offences needs a complete redesign by women.

Oh great. Yup, absolutely no need for feminism in this day and age.

Seriously you couldn't make this up.

Yes, but women who truly understand as not all do yet.

An abuse dynamic is complex to unpick, and it needs experts to run this service that purports to be for justice.

An abuse dynamic is complex to unpick, and it needs experts to run this service that purports to be for justice.

Exactly so ... and it seems abuse of females in so ingrained in men that they have absolutely no means by which to have any awareness of this. Hence, announcements like that made today.

We need a team of women to overhaul aspects of our justice system without any reference to any men.

Smotheroffive

It's not the text messages that collapses the case it's the lack of disclosure. Unfortunately, for years the Police would not disclose evidence that helps the defence. This led to miscarriages of justice.

The information on a police download isn't a user friendly website. It generally is A4 sheets with gluts of text and code. Potentially a thousand pages. This won't be done as a matter of course for any crime, as the Police don't have the resources to interegate it.

However, where there is potential evidence that helps or hinders the case. The Police need to disclose it. That is true with every crime. The hysteria around this will hurt rape victims.

My point is what could there possibly be that matters when it comes to rape exactly?

Non-disclosure about what would actually make any difference to whether it was rape. Whether everything or nothing was disclosed apart from the moment the male raped?

This is why it has to change 'technicalities' in rape don't matter?

When a woman can have a recording of herself being raped, and the guy gets off, when multiple women have been murdered and the men get off by claiming rough sex gone wrong. When a man can get off by claiming that he fell over and his penis went in the sleeping woman, then frankly, whether the coppers see the text messages on your phone or not is going to be irrelevant.

Perhaps the police need to work on their computer skills then, because I can get clean, easy to search and read dumps of my social messaging. Fully indexed and searchable. But until they can manage to successfully prosecute men who rape and murder women with apparent impunity, I'm going to assume that anything I say would end up being used against me, and would let a lawyer deal with it.

"However, where there is potential evidence that helps or hinders the case. The Police need to disclose it. That is true with every crime. The hysteria around this will hurt rape victims."

[Note use of "hysteria"! So we know what we are dealing with here!]

Maybe the evidence requirements need to render sexual / medical / social history of any victim redundant in such cases?

Why is such history of any relevance with regard to the victim of any sexual offence?

The hysteria around this will hurt rape victims

The anger around this is because;

• It is illegal.
• It is coercion. (we wont prosecute unless you comply is coercion, which is a form of abuse, and compounds the abuse that has already taken place.)
• While a man can use 'we were in the same location' as evidence that he was raped, a woman cannot use evidence such as a witness who says 'he was raping her in a muddy field with his hands around her neck', or a phone recording of her rape. (This isn't hyperbole, these are actual cases).

It is not womens anger that is hurting rape victims.

I work in this field.

I think the papers have covered it terribly and surprisingly don't give the entire story.

I hope this doesn't put anyone off coming forward to report sexual assault or rape.

The stats are that the majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. Therefore there may be evidence on the handset. Often there is an admission of guilt or the victim discussed what happens with friends after the event.
I understand that this can be viewed as another way of saying 'we don't believe you' but crimes must be investigated sadly and are often done so with a blunt instrument.

The victim will be asked to surrender their phone and can often wait while it is processed so we can minimise the time they are without it.
We really do our utmost to be supportive.

They can also consent to what data is shown in the report. So may just be data from the day, contact with the suspect etc.