Is anyone else incensed by this judge's comments?

[sethstarkaddersmum]

judge says woman 'betrayed the sisterhood'

it's another 'false rape allegation' case; I have to say I of course have not got the foggiest idea what the truth of this case is (though I note that if the only evidence she was lying is simply the fact that she sent the guy text messages after she said he'd raped her, that's pretty weak evidence - women do NOT act like textbook victims and I could quite imagine someone doing this if the reality of the rape still hadn't sunk in).

anyway judge Julian Hall said, 'Some people who commit rape are acquitted because people like you make false allegations.
?To put this a little dramatically you have betrayed the sisterhood.'

What right has he got to speak for the sisterhood? How f*cking dare he?

anyway, it turns out he has previous on showing more sympathy for accused than complainant.

Dittany this was a one night stand i am not talking about all cases i am talking about this case (which is the point of th thread).

How many rape victims in this country do you think there is that marries etc people that they meet once that rapes them?

This did not happen in some longterm relationship (or even short term one to be honest) nor were they previously well known to each other.

The text message was not seen as definite proof her admittance when presented with contradictory evidence to her previous statement was the major factor.

marrying is an extreme example but the point Dittany is making is that rape victims often don't act in the way you might expect after the attack. You said you doubt sending texts to the attacker is a habit of rape victims.... but actually it is entirely plausible.

I'm only as sure of my opinion as you seem of yours despite the evidence provided

Anyway i just see this case as a one night stand gone wrong in which a woman contacts the man repeatedly afterwards but is ignored and so gets pissed off. Things like this happen obviously most women would not react by making false allegations but no person is the same peoples behavaiour/morality differs and some are more spiteful than others.

Seth i am sure that sending texts or meeting up with the person that raped happens i am sure they have greater occurrence in cases where both people are well known to each other beforehand. I just doubt that it would happen in a case where they have never met before so basically it would be a person contacting someone after stranger rape.

Also court is about evidence so even if there is a small chance that it may have actually been a rape how could a person prove it she invited him then afterwards continually contacts him asking if he wants to meet again. That will destroy any case anyone has for most crimes.

Dittany the difference is that i am commenting on things which seem to have been proven by evidence provided and what the actual accuser said themselves so of course i would sound surer when i have been provided in with the information.

To the OP to be honest i think the comment about 'sisterhood' was not warranted not because he is male but simply because think that all women or men will at all times do actions which benefit their gender as naive. People are individuals you can't control people and you certainly can't say someone betrayed their gender because they really don't owe their own gender anything.

However to make her aware that because of what she did people will continually look at rape with jaded eyes (as the press always takes note of false allegations which i hate)makes sense.

Since not only did she attempt to ruin someone else's life but she detracts from cases where women have really been raped.

the fact that it was this particular judge getting on his high horse about whose fault it is that it's hard to get a rape conviction really does take the biscuit, given that he is someone who has actually, personally, in the past, directly let rapists off the hook.

it really is this 'blaming women for everything ' thing. The idea that the low conviction rate is the fault of this 2% of complainants making false allegations looks to me like a handy way to let everyone else involved off the hook.... whose fault is it you probably won't get your rapist brought to justice? Why, it's the fault of your lying cheating sisters of course!

ironically (snort) imprisoning a woman for a false allegation is (regardless of the moral rightness or wrongness of doing so) likely to bring the rate down further as more women will be too scared to report it or press ahead with a conviction in case it all goes wrong and rebounds on them. If he was serious about wanting to improve the conviction rate he would not be doing his best to make a public example of her.

the hypocrisy....

I still don't understand why she would admit to lying if she wasn't. If the CP though there was not enough evidence to proceed they case would have been dismissed before going to court and CP would have not prosecuted her for that. Even if the PC concerned would have then sued surely it would have been her word against his? She would have only been convicted if there was enough evidence to do so. Otherwise dismissed for lack of evidence?

"These people also talk as if false complaints of rape are frequently made but they are able to say this because people like you occasionally do."

No, they talk about them as if they were frequently made because that's what they want to believe.

At the risk of getting in trouble for going on about this again, could I please remind you of the case of Gail Sherwood?

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/09/gail-sherwood-jailed-campaigners

She was made out to be a liar and a fantasist, yet her partner supports her, her three daughters support her, and so do over 70 of her friends who wrote to the judge in support of her.

655 people have signed the petition demanding that she is released and the police start looking for the man who stalked and raped her (www.petitiononline.com/WAR2010/petition.html)

I have also met another woman who was torn apart by the Daily Mail after she was sentenced to two years in prison for making a false allegation. I've heard her side of the story and am convnced that she didn't do anything wrong (it was simply yet another case of the police failing to investigate the caseproperly)

Another woman I met reported being raped so the rapist told the police SHE was stalking him. Guess who they believed? And she ended up in court...

I know it sounds completely outrageous-- but the Worboys, Reid and Southwark cases highlighted in 2009 showed just how badly many rape investigations are handled by the police.

The Times reported that one senior police officer told a woman who reported being raped by Worboys: "f**k off, black cab drivers don't do that sort of thing". As such he was basically accusing her of making a false allegation.

Can you imagine being raped, finding the courage to report it to the police to find yourself disbelieved, discredited and then sentenced to two years in prison?

The Daily Mail LOVE reporting false allegatons, making women out to be terrible mothers, drunks, sex addicts, mentally ill etc etc. The government just propogate the myth that lots of women lie by proposing anonymity for rape defendants.

As long as the general public blame false allegations for the low conviction rate, then the authorities are off the hook and don't have to take responsibility for it.

What people fail to realise is that if ALL CRIMES WERE INVESTIGATED PROPERLY men who were raping would end up in court, and the handful of false allegations would never make it that far.

The judges always say that false allegations ruin the plight of real rape victims. Well I'd hazard a guess that many of the people who have signed the petition for Gail Sherwood are women who reported rape to the police, but found they weren't taken seriously, evidence wasn't gathered and the man was never charged.