Is a man accused of rape guilty until proven innocent?

[APBrasRule]

I have listened to a lot of debate about rape over the years and I felt it was a great step forward when a woman who had been raped was given anonymity in court.

However listening to Woman's Hour this morning I felt we now want to change the burden of poof from proof of guilt to the man having to prove he is innocent.

ISNT - it was me you were having a ding dong with on the other thread and I have not commented on this thread for that reason.

UQD and me are ofen get mistaken for each other but like him I do not routinely comment on feminsm threads either.

I did comment on 'anonimity' thread though because I sensed the slippery slope of changing the burden of proof was underlying many of the comments there.

We cannot go round changing burdens of proof to get the verdict we prefer in court cases. That would undermine the entire basis of our legal system.

Enough said.

The low conviction rate for rape undermines the entire basis of the rule of law.

I as a woman understand that if I'm raped (again), unless it is a classic but very rare "stranger jumping out of dark alley" situation, I will not get justice (again). And since 1 in 4 women (on conservative estimates) get raped by men, that's an awful lot of women who don't get justice.

No-one's that worried about how women don't have the protection of the law though, are they? No-one goes on and on about how it's undermining our whole legal system and the rule of law, are they?

Thankyou herbeatitude

where does everyone get the energy to engage from

when I am confronted yet again by people peddling rape myths or suggesting that the assumption of perpetual consent can't be revoked or the earth will fly off its axis I just want to either curl up in a ball or respond with stupid facetious smartarsery

not the best response I know

I think I just find it wearing that something so key to my life and mental health is a matter fir cheap pointscoring and abstract conjecture

as though we are debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin

on the one hand I think, ok I need to engage seriously and help people understand where I am coming from/a feminist perspective

on the other hand I think o fuck off I can't be arsed

LOL I frequently have the same thought, chibi...

pFFFF

Yes of course. Not changing the law to allow anonimity for men accused of rape

is exactly the same

as changing the burden of proof for rape cases and rearranging the whole structure of teh criminal justice system in order to do so.

That is so obvious.

FFS

op do you have a son? can you imagine if your son was accused of rape ?

Think the OP's long gone tbh

custardo

I do not imagine it would be any worse than if he were accused of murder, child sex offences, torturing animals, violently abusing elderly people.

Do you?

no not at all - would you want the law - and the burden of proof changed then?

Every man is some mother's son

let's not try or convict anyone ever again

result!

Oh weren't you talking about anonimity? Sorry that's what I was talking about and assumed (incorrectly) that we were talking about the same thing! Sorry about that.

Clearly innocent until proven guilty is the only thing that makes any sense, as everyone has agreed on this thread (the OP was stirring).

The burden of proof thing is difficult

Until a few decades ago some women were unable to withhold consent in law (wives, maybe prostitutes?)

Then they said that these women could be raped, but the defence people still used peoples preconceptions to put women in the category of "not rapeable" by basically trying to show that they were promiscuous or immora in some other way

Then the law was changed so that defence lawyers were not able to scrutinise the victims past as a matter of course. As I understand it though, they can still apply to the judge to include this and there was an article someone linked to with some lawyers and they said that they always applied to be able to do this as a matter of course

There are also directions that are supposed to be given by the judge to the jury to try and dispel rape myths eg a woman agreeing to have a drink with a man does not automatically mean she consents to sex

However

Time and time again, juries judge that women were consenting in the most bizarre of circumstances, their private lives are still picked apart etc. It still stands that if the defence people can show the jury one or more of the myths about women "asking for it" then they will find not guilty.

There is also this huge issue of rape being prosecuted badly, the police not gathering evidence/not taking complaints seriously and so on.

I don't think the burden of proof needs to change, I think teh police and CPS need to buck their ideas up and much work needs to be done to break down rape myths in the minds of the public and juries.

I think that's what i think anyway, teh burden of proof thing is something that I have only just started thinking about on this thread.

I totally sypathise with the POV that at the moment women seem to be assumed to be consenting unless it can be proved otherwise, why is that really? When in fact most women do not go around gagging for it the whole time and ready and willing to drop their knickers for groups of strange men, no matter what some peoples sexual fantasies might say.

I mean, that 8yo who was attacked recently by those 2 boys, I saw someone on TV say that she "probably enjoyed it". This was after the verdict. That case and the reporting around it showed very clearly where the sympathies of the press and public lie in rape cases. Everyone was desperate for them to be found not guilty/to have the case thrown out/to assume that the girl was an active willing consenting participant. Even after the boys were found guilty of attempted rape that approach continued. Headlines said "those poor boys" and barely even mentioned the victim.

I keep coming back to the idea that there is no appetite for change.

It;s too expensive
And where is the real cost to society of all this rape. Some miserable women - so what.
And if we did get really good at prosecuting this, there'd never be time for anything else

I think that lip service is paid but really no-one wants to know.

Plus as a society it is easier to pretend there's no problem and victims are lying/it's all a misunderstanding as that's so much easier for everyone to process.

I see threads and TV progs about SA and the rape epidemic, which is obviously truely appalling. But I wonder what the scale of the problem in the UK really is, and why aren't people starting threads / making programs about that? I think that it's easier for people to see it as something that happens to other people/in other countries and so on.

too

I'm going to bed now to watch american cop shows that will no doubt involve the characters visiting lots of strip clubs.

Really need to break that habit. Bring back columbo I say.