Rape cases dropped if victims refuse to hand over phones

[Dervel]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-49072302

How did anyone get convicted before the advent of phones? This is such an egregious violation of a right to privacy.

Her mother later discovered the messages and contacted the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, part of the National Crime Agencyy* (NCA), which advised her to report them to the police.

“They have discretion not to take formal action if it isn’t in the public interest to do so. Police are encouraged to take a common sense approach that does not criminalise children unnecessarily.”

So from reading the article you'd finally sent, (bit difficult for me to previously answer your questions when I didn't have the case you were referring to), although it seems unfair and unjust there are elements to this that need to be considered.

CEOP were contacted. The police have a duty of care to inform the parent that there was a "possibility" the child could face charges. In an event that the child was part of a child exploitation ring, which isn't this case in this situation, there could be charges brought. For example, it's been known that in these exploitation rings children become a part of distributing images and become involved in the process in a criminal manor.

Just because the police force said there was a possibility she could face charges, doesn't necessarily mean she did. I'm sure that when the police rule out the possibility of the child being a part of an exploitation ring, any form of indication that she may be "charged" become void.

It's about seeing the bigger picture from a legal perspective and ruling out possibilities.

I'm sure you won't agree with anything I have to say as you seem hellbent on straight up blaming the system without looking at the bigger picture.

I would like to see the end result of that case.

You need read a bit more I think. The police cps etc have easy less than great history with these types of crimes.

@Fraggling I have qualifications in law, specifically criminal law. I have also been a victim of rape. I am more than aware that the CPS have a poor history in successfully prosecuting crimes of sexual abuse. The percentage of reported sexual assaults and rape crimes being successfully prosecuted in the UK is around 2%.

Our judicial system is extremely flawed. I'm merely just trying to explain a possible process of collecting evidence in these particular types of cases.

Finally sent?

You didn't put in aFOI request lol this is a chat board.

You never asked what i was talking about.

You just told me that it was a load of rubbish.

Have you even read the article in the op, seen the examples, thought about the real life consequences of all this?

I can't really get on board with someone who condones, supports the confiscation and search of a 12yo rape victims phone, where the rapist has confessed.

If she says no, what do you think should happen? Out of interest.

This shit pisses me off. It does not matter what is on the victim's phone. She was raped. A person decided to rape her. There are no mitigating circumstances on her phone. That person who raped her was in control of their own actions. Stop victim blaming.

I have looked multiple times for the end result of that case by the way, never found anything.

None of the press reports or police statements even mentioned going after the man.
Threads at the time on mn showed a significant minority view that she should be pursued as had broken the law and it would be a good warning to her.

As no follow up in press, all mums and daughters who read it, understood top think really hard before reporting incidents of this nature. Is that a good result. Not for victims, but for the police, yes. Less to investigate.

Cressida Dick said last year she was not interested in sex offences where she didn't think she'd get a conviction. She (essentially) mentioned historical abuse and date rape as things not worth her time.

There is context to all this. Contact is police cannot cope with tsunami of women and girls reporting genuine sex crimes, want to go back to when it was only the most serious ones they had to look into.

That is my honest and genuine belief, i am sure you will disagree.

I was literally just trying to explain it from a legal point of view. It's about filtering out possibilities rather than criminalising the victim.

The victim side of me does agree with you to an extent. The CPS aren't interested if there isn't enough evidence. If it doesn't meet their threshold then they won't even charge the defendant and it's soul destroying. I've been through it.

I had internal injuries, I had conversations with a friend directly after the assault, I had messages from him. He was calling me and messaging me while the police and forensics were in my house because he was on panic mode. They had his DNA. That still wasn't enough for the CPS. And it's so shit. I have to live every day knowing he lives in the same area walking free like nothing happened.

I started off commenting on this thread by saying that I did hand my phone over and I didn't question it. I wanted to have him prosecuted so badly that I didn't care that the police potentially had access to my entire phone content. But I had nothing to hide in this case.

I don't appreciate the fact a PP said I was victim blaming. I was purely trying to explain from a legal perspective why the police may do what they do and I understand it from a technical point of view.

I'm done with commenting now. I was just trying to explain the possible bigger picture and being open and honest with my own experience.

Cressida dick is not cps. She is head of met. It should not be up to her and her officers which reports are worth the bother of investigating.

I am sorry were raped and hope the prosecution was successful.

The context around all this is awful though. This is the new passing her knickers round the jury. The new well, she seems like an up for it sort of girl.

It's a real worry. Bottom line is if women have to hand their phones in to get rape jnvestigated, it will only act as a huge deterrent to reporting. And i believe the police know that.

The cases last year that collapsed after phone evidence came out that had not been shared with defence. One news report had a side note at the end saying the proportion of rape cases affected was same as other crimes. Yet, the reporting in media was all about rape, making it seem that it was specific to that crime. Police and ?official statements about what to do also focussed on rape iirc. It is mainly victims of sex offences who are routinely being told they must hand over phones, or there may be no investigation, and any criminal activity they find in phone may be prosecuted.

So woman is violently gang raped, ends up in hosp, police come, she bought some drugs 5 years ago, or sent some explicit pics to an ex that she doesn't want anyone seeing, what does she do? What happens? If she says no, police walk away? If she says days yes, she is prosecuted / case is fucked as she did something inadvisable in the past?

You're obviously not reading what I'm saying because my prosecution wasn't successful, I'd said that.

Phones contain evidence, it's as simple as that. Rape is very difficult to prove at the best of times, I'd know. So it's important that the phones are used. You can blame all the false rape allegations for that. I've made my counter argument on it, I don't have anything else to say.

I know what I’m about to say will sound pathetic but if I went to the police about being raped and they wanted my phone, I couldn’t do it. No way, I have anxiety and as embarrassing as it is, my phone is my crutch. I always have it with me, I used it to escape and if I had to go without it for a month I’d feel lost. It’s also my only way of contacting anyone and my daughter has a lot of hospital staff involved in her care and I couldn’t be without my phone to arrange things for her. I do understand why they would want it and I know texts or messages of some kind have been found on phones that have helped with finding out what happened, but it doesn’t sit right. I’ve never reported any rapes that happened to me but I take full responsibility for that but I was in a bad place and didn’t feel able to. If it happened now I would feel more able but if they wanted my phone I’d just back out and not bother.

The police did offer to give me a temporary phone as they only took my sim for about 24 hours, but I had another spare to use. It's the downloading of the actual phones content that apparently takes time.

I do appreciate that some people feel it's an invasion of privacy. I think at the time, it just didn't cross my mind and I just did it and I'd probably do it again.

Some women have had to hand their phone over for months, and have had all the data handed to the defense.
The police need to sort this out, the situation has a negative effect on the victim of a serious crime.

'Phones contain evidence, it's as simple as that. Rape is very difficult to prove at the best of times, I'd know. So it's important that the phones are used. You can blame all the false rape allegations for that.'

She was 12
He had confessed

What do you mean' all ' the false allegations. There are no more than for other crimes. And using this as an argument in this case is crass. She was 12. 12 yo girls are well known to lie about this is the suggestion. Even though he confessed. Maybe she had leverage over him and forced him to confess, and this is why they need her phone. Yep that's probably it.

Oh please stop bashing me it's getting fucking boring now

You’re not being bashed, your views are. Don’t comment if you’re not prepared to have what you’re saying challenged. Do you really think they should take a 12 year olds phone when the accused had plead guilty? Surely there are many circumstances it’s not appropriate and that maybe they are abusing their powers by holding on to phones so long?

What about the accused who can be exonerated from texts? Why shouldn't the police have phones. I'm sorry but I'm behind this. So many people have been falsely accused and had their lives absolutely turned upside down then its come out later that they could have been exonerated.
Likewise, if rapists could be convinced from phones then good for it. I know there was something in the news today about a cricketer filming a woman having sex, something she didn't know anything about and shared it with friends. Phone evidence obviously helped this case.

It's the downloading of the actual phone's content that apparently takes time.

It actually takes no more than a few minutes.

My friend is a digital forensics expert and I've accompanied him to a police station (needed help carrying all the equipment etc as they insisted he bring his own computer and gear).

I sat in the evidence room with him under supervision of a copper and watched him do it all. He even let me download one, which was as simple as finding the right adaptor, plugging in, and hitting 'download messages' (pretended I was his new trainee lol).

Admittedly this was a fairly old phone (not quite a modern smartphone) but I'd imagine the process would be similar, although iPhones are notoriously hard to crack.

We used a portable Cellebrite machine linked to a really powerful desktop.

Many of the issues raised in this thread are discussed in detail in Big Brother Watch UK's report: Digital Strip Searches

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Digital-Strip-Searches-Final.pdf

They and the other organisations very clearly discuss the technology that police forces are using and lay out the reasons for the following recommendations:

Victims’ consent to access their personal records should be freely given, specific and limited to the information relevant to the crime – not blanket. Victims of crime should never have to sign away their privacy rights in the pursuit of justice.
The police’s digital evidence technology should be brought up to date so police can collect targeted pieces of evidence from smart phones, rather than entire digital copies.

I'm just going to mention here that I would not be able to consent to a complete (rather than specified) download of my phone or similar devices as my activities and work involve documents etc. that are confidential. Consent to download shouldn't depend on the policies and technology available in the relevant police authority. The ability to go ahead with a prosecution should not be contingent on a broad data download because of these differences.

Yes I would. It comes down to me having nothing to hide.

Nothing to hide, but many things that could possibly be twisted to make out you consented. I have a feeling that undie pics I sent to my husband years back might be dredged up to prove that I am actually a slut who consented to sex with any bloke who fancied it.

Hello ballsdeep lovely user name.

You support the removal and search of a12yo rape victims phone. When the rapist had confessed.

OK.

I assume you've read the article in the op and the specific examples in it.

So many people have been falsely accused and had their lives absolutely turned upside down then its come out later that they could have been exonerated.

Thats just bull tbh. Its something like 2 men per year even see the inside of a courtroom because of a false accusation (and that does not mean they are convicted either). While I do admit it would be better if those 2 blokes did not get to court..its hardly the epidemic that people make out it is. More people are falsely imprisoned for murder than rape..

This comes back to perfect victim I think.

The woman or girl must prove that she has left an absolutely impeccable life, or she is not worthy of justice.

We were getting away from that.

@stilldontgiveaf sorry to hear about your experience of rape, and that the criminal went unpunished. Thanks for sharing your views despite that distressing background to them.

@Forgotthebins thank you. It wasn't necessarily easy to share, but it's something I feel strongly about so felt the need to put a personal opinion across.

To those who have mentioned about having other content on your phone that may be used against you, ie photographs of a particular nature to other people. Please don't think I fell under the "perfect victim" category. I did too have photographs of myself on my phone sent to previous people. Or conversations between other people. But I had no criminal content. And those things I did have on my phone certainly weren't used against me. The reasons my case fell apart was because he admitted to being in my home. He then claimed it was consensual and I "wanted it" in a particular way which would explain my internal injuries. Therefore leading to the DNA evidence being void and having a counter argument for the injuries which couldn't be disproved. It was my word against his.

It also took them eight days to find him. He was hiding, even though they had addresses for him and his lives very close to the police station. They have a seven day window to collect DNA from him. His T-shirt was covered in my blood and I believe this wasn't searched for or found.

The fact of the matter is, there wasn't enough evidence for the CPS threshold. And they won't charge unless they are almost guaranteed a guilty verdict.

It's very sad and it's heartbreaking.

This happens in cases of coercive control too. My friend had hers taken by the police but it did work in her favour as she had a full record of messages etc which helped them to charge her.

I mean charge him, not her.