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Rape case thrown out because of woman's sexual fantasies.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8455161.stm
I would be interested to hear people's thoughts on this story - obviously I don't know all the details but from reading this news article, it would appear that if you ever admit to having any kind of sexual fantasy, then people can do that thing to you without your consent because secretly, you are clearly loving it, and even if you say you weren't, you can't possibly be believed because you'd previously admitted to quite liking the idea.
That seems pretty shocking to me. Fair enough, it might have been the case that the jury would not have found enough evidence to convict. But the judge instructing them to find not guilty, because the womans credibility is "shot to pieces" because there is evidence of her having group sex fantasies?
I would be interested to hear people's thoughts on this story - obviously I don't know all the details but from reading this news article, it would appear that if you ever admit to having any kind of sexual fantasy, then people can do that thing to you without your consent because secretly, you are clearly loving it, and even if you say you weren't, you can't possibly be believed because you'd previously admitted to quite liking the idea.
That seems pretty shocking to me. Fair enough, it might have been the case that the jury would not have found enough evidence to convict. But the judge instructing them to find not guilty, because the womans credibility is "shot to pieces" because there is evidence of her having group sex fantasies?
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There is a whole world of difference between fantasy and reality. I can appreciate that meeting up with a man for sex, after you've discussed your group sex fantasies, and then saying you don't want group sex might cause a bit of confusion, but just because you've discussed a fantasy with someone, doesn't mean you've given consent for it to happen.
I've got no idea whether she was raped or not, but I don't see how that can possibly justify throwing out the case.
I think this is a fair assessment of my initial thoughts on the story. The details seem a bit sketchy, but I can't see a good reason why trial by jury shouldn't have gone ahead.
It sucks but the other option is to return a verdict of guilty beyond reasonable doubt despite evidence indicating the victim may have wanted it, which sets the legal precedent that the victims account must be true and calling into question her truthfulness is irrellevent (tbh this already occurs in people normally, its a sociological phenomenon where people are predisposed to believe women saying they've been raped).
It wasn't proved that she wasnt raped, rather that it was impossible to secure a safe conviction when there isn't any concrete evidence of rape (like CCTV or something), and ultimately it comes down to his word against hers, and there is evidence she may not be 100% truthful.
It would work both ways though, if a guy had said he had a fantasy to rape a girl, then was accused of rape, would that not be held against him in a similar light?
Consider that in criminal cases the burden of proof lies on the prosecuters to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, all the defence has to do is create enough doubt as to whether the rape occured as it did.
The only real way round it is to change the law i think, but then are you on a slippery slope of just lowering the bar? Where innocent people start having to prove that they're innocent?
edit I'm not sure why the judge threw out the case though. Maybe he was worried about setting dodgy precedent? It should still come down to jury (who should really say not guilty without some other compelling evidence other than her testimony).
Actually juries and judges (and many members of society in general for that matter) are notorious for disbelieving women who claim to have been raped or blaming the victims themselves for what happened. Rape is one of the few crimes where the victim instead of the perpetrator is put on trial.
"It would work both ways though, if a guy had said he had a fantasy to rape a girl, then was accused of rape, would that not be held against him in a similar light?"
I don't see this as a reversal of the roles. The girl never had a fantasy of being raped, it was a fantasy of group sex. Furthermore, rape is a violent crime, whilst group sex isn't nor is being the victim of a rape.
"The only real way round it is to change the law i think, but then are you on a slippery slope of just lowering the bar? Where innocent people start having to prove that they're innocent?"
First of all, this is assuming he is innocent, which he may or may not be. Also, potentionally innocent people who have been accused of crimes and been taken to court already have to present evidence to assert their innocence, so allowing the trial to go ahead in this case wouldn't have been setting any slippery slope in motion.
Anyway, in this case the judges decision to throw on the case without even hearing her evidence just because she had a fantasy of group sex is completely absurd. Just because she had a fantasy about it doesn't mean she definitely consented to it or would consent to it with anybody.
Because the prosecution declined to prosecute.
I'm not disagreeing entirely, but the literature I've read has indicated that there a mental block for people when a woman accuses someone of raping her - people cannot believe that anyone would make that up. Imagine if someone told you they were raped. Would you doubt them? That's not to say that there aren't significant sections of society that allocate some of the blame to the woman for whatever reason, but that is to say that generally the woman is believed that she was raped. That's also not to say that women are always lying, but just that her account is often believed. But that's largely besides the point in this case. If it came down to 'who do you believe more' people would may say the woman, but the onus of evidence means the case has to be proved which as I get onto... is very difficult.
It is a reversal of roles, in a court case where its his-word against her-word, one of the main strategies is to discredit the other person and open the doubt they they may not be truthful in what they are saying. Anything he said would be used against him to discredit him in the same way anything she said will be used against her.
We DO assume people are innocent in this country though. It is up to the prosecution to put a case together to prove beyond reasonable doubt you are guilty. You don't have to prove that you're innocent, all you need to do is defend your innocence and prevent the prosecution proving your guilt. By shifting the burden onto the defence and less on the prosecution you are changing the balance. Is that what we want to do?
I'm not sure why the judge threw it out, but I'm not a lawyer. But, as I said, it hasn't been proven that it was not rape or that she definitely consented to it, just that there were no grounds for a safe conviction that she definitely *didn't* consent to it in light of the evidence. It's a subtle but significant difference.
So it wasn't that the case was thrown out, it's that the prosecutor elected not to persue the prosecution.
And again, I'm not saying this was right or wrong, but the prosecutor seems to have actual decided to change his views based on the defendants discussion of group sex with the main defendant.
Now I'm not the one saying this means that the case shouldn't have gone ahead but it does seem like the case was that the woman in question had agreed, through MSN, to meet a man for sex.
During those conversations she seems to have discussed having group sex - the details of that conversation we'll obviously never see.
This evidence seems to have been presented on the day by the defence and on reading the case the prosecutor didn't say rape didn't happen - he's made a judgement that it would be impossible to secure a conviction if the jury was to read those transcripts.
It's worth noting that evidence was presented by the defence, the transcripts, and at this point the prosecution declined to continue the case.
I would imagine that whether or not the prosecutor felt rape had taken place, I'm pretty certain he's unlikely to have taken the case this far if he didn't, he then felt that because of many of the reasons already mentioned in this thread a conviction would have been impossible.
So faced with the prospect of the woman having to spend days going through what she'd said in the chat sessions, as well as the press publicity it would have attracted, only to be followed by all the men being found innocent - he felt it was best not to continue.
As I said, I found the story horrible to read, but that's my best understand of the facts as I see them presented in the story.
Were made by Michael Leeming, the prosecutor and not by Robert Brown the judge, who simply followed procedure and ordered the jury to find the defendants not guilty, since their was no case presented to answer. Though his summing up of why the prosecutor didn't take the case forward, given how serious the case was, probably could have done without the tone that 'Not to put too fine a point on it, her credibility was shot to pieces.' implies.
Although, what the fuck is the case doing get this far before the prosecution or reading chat logs at this stage - did it never occur to read them beforehand and prepare accordingly?
I think I'm going to change my account to a bot that just quotes jim and types "+1".
But yea, cock up on not looking at the evidence beforehand. But I guess the prosecution needs to disclose all its evidence in advance, and the defence doesnt (for whatever reason).
There are rules of disclosure for the defence set forth in the Criminal Procedure Rules, which relate to the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.
In a case of this nature, with a serious allegation, a compulsory disclosure by each of the accused would be needed in the form of a written statement setting out the particulars of the defence.
I guess it is difficult to know without reading the transcripts of the conversations, and for all we know she may have agreed over msn to have group sex, only to change her mind later.
I guess it's been reported in a particularly sensationalist way so that it sounds very dubious indeed. I still think that if I agree to have group sex, and later change my mind, if people go ahead with it then a serious crime has been committed. But I can see why it might be difficult to secure a prosecution.
The worrying thing is the idea that a rape victim's credibility might be "shot to pieces" if she at one point says she likes the idea of something or agrees to it, and later changes her mind.
It doesn't change the truth of what may have happened, but it does change the case.
It's one of those times that shows the difficulty of considering a wider issue, which is what p&d is here for as well, with a specific case. Nothing about this case changes exactly what you've said - no matter what a person agrees to they have an absolute right to change their mind - but the specifics here are to hard to generalise from.
And yeah, there's no doubt what the key issue is around rape trials - that credibility becomes the central point to a case in a way that is far more central than in many other crimes. I don't think I've ever seen the idea of someone making up domestic abuse considered in the same way as that idea is suggested around rape cases.
Surely the question is whether she was raped, not whether she lied about the content of some chat room log...?
How do we know, this one wasn't asked?
In this country, at the moment, rape convoction rates are very low. Now, either that is because many innocent alledged rapists are brought to court unnecessarily, or many guilty men are walking away from rape scot free. I know which I suspect is the answer.
Now, here we have a case which has been brought to court and yet where the jury haven't been given the opportunity to make a decision for themselves.
Given what is written here, I suspect that they wouldn't have convicted any more than you do. But I would rather it was their choice than the lawyers.
I also want to ask the other salient point. What difference should her fantasies make? What difference does anything she says, right up until the moment she said "no" make?
I feel uncomfortable in that the probably part of the reason the lawyer made the decision is because he knows (from experience) that to many juries it does make a difference. Personally, I think that's abhorrent.
Partly because they often end up with headlines like the ones we are seeing her.
No, her fantasies shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not it was rape. BUT where the only avaliable evidence is that she says she said no at the time, they said she said yes, and her previous conversations say she said yes she had the intention, then it's hard for a requirement for a beyond reasonable doubt conviction to go against the defendant.
Which means that someone has to make the decision that this trial would not be in the public interest.
As to the question of what difference does anything she says up to the point she says no (where 'she' here is now any woman, not the one is the case in particular), in theory it doesn't make any difference. BUT if you are going to put yourself into a vulnerable situation, where there will be no witnesses, and then massively change your mind you are a) liable to massively confuse the guy in question and b) unlikely to ever get a conviction for rape that takes place unless you happen to video yourself.
In this case, in the interests of justice I'd rather the lawyers make the decision over the jury. Strong character in the jury takes the 'they took advantage when she wimped out of earlier plans, rah rah make the evil beastly men pay for all the crimes of man' and you get a completely unfair conviction, based on no evidence other than he said, she said, and later a costly appeal, and in the process a lot of character defamation.
I agree but I think thats largely because rape comes down to his word against her word and in that scenario its hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt.
Me too tbh, but I can see why the lawyer would withdraw from the case. If you knew as a professional you had no hope of a conviction maybe it falls under your professional and ethical duty not to put the victim under any more unnecessary stress.
Generally speaking in court the defence and the prosecution has to sell a narrative to the jury - the events that could have happened. The evidence available to the court then helps the jury which narrative to believe and ultimately whether to return a guilty or not guilty. This -is- submissible evidence when a case relies on testimony because it is something about the person submitting evidence.
It casts a shadow on whether they are being truthful. It would go the other way too, I'm sure. Lawyers have a professional duty to try to discredit the testimony of the opposition in whatever way they can, either by picking holes in their statements / causing them to contradict themselves, or by bringing to light evidence which might contradict or cast doubt on their statement. I have full confidence it would be used in 100% the same way if it went the other way, this is how courts work.
Whether they should be changed? Maybe. But then do you make a special case for rape where evidence is not admissible to discredit a victims testimony, in essence taking what they said as gospel (or even possibly systematically undermining their testimony as there 'could' be things that aren't disclosed and so biases the jury).
But why do we assume that she is more likely to be lying about the situation that him. Fine she may have lied about the content of an email exchange but that doesn't automatically mean that she is lying about the events in dispute.
Just as those messages might suggest that she has the fantasy, it would also suggest that he was party and may continue even though she actually doesn't want to go through with the act.
As a juror I would also want to consider that he also has motivation to lie on the stand and I would want his defence to demonstarte that she has enough motivation to lie about the eventsand not just about a fantasy.
I can see why he would withdraw, I just believe that it perpetuates the impression that accusers word cannot be believed and that her sexual history and fantasies can be used as evidence to discredit her account of a [possibly] brutal act.
I agree that innocent until proven guilty is an absolute but I also believe that the fact that she lied about transcripts doen't constitute "reasonable" doubt about her account of a separate event. Given the sexual history is frequently used against women in rape cases, I'd say that she is more likely to lie about that than the events of the night.
Because it is criminal case, where the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt, not a civil case where the burden of proof is balance of probabilities. It's not "is she more likely to be lying", it's "is it possible she might be lying".
But the speculation is pointless - the prosecutor decided not to prosecute, she has so far not decided to take a private prosecution.
All the defence has to do is open the suggestion that it didn't happen, and they have done that by providing evidence that she may have been interested the day before. It's unfortunate but without solid evidence to the contrary there's no chance of getting a safe conviction.
May I be so bold as to add another ?
Perhaps the, as yet unnamed, female did not say no at all.
I would say that in the interest of fairness that theory should, at least, be considered.
Is there any evidence at all that she lied? Nope. She wasn't on trial anyway.
Just nowhere near enough evidence to say she was raped.
More conspiracy theory,again, as I am not privy to the defence statements of the 6(5+1) defendants.
I will theorise that the 6 defences were of a legal nature rather than a factual one on the issue of the occurence of sexual intercourse, and none actually claimed that intercourse had not taken place.
IF that is correct then it would be a matter of whether the complainant had not agreed to the event.