[Kizzy]

The police wouldn't have to withhold evidence to get rape figures up... That would suggest that women are not being raped daily and they are.

I don't like this, the attempt is to undermine public confidence in both the police and the justice systems in rape cases....Hmmmm, very odd indeed.

[LeatherTrumpet]

where is The Truth when we need him to make sense of this mess?

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Isaiah 7:14

where is The Truth when we need him to make sense of this mess?

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by ChristmasNeeve

You don't even get life in prison for paedophilia so I doubt that but she absolutely should be prosecuted, that's for sure. can't believe the Police would do what they did though, for what reason would they want to?

Oh it's frightening what could have come about in this case.
Really shocking, thankfully barely just exposed in time however the devastation to this lad's life is a disgrace.

I agree she should be prosecuted.
I really hope he can now lift himself up in time and confidently live his life from now on.

[smudgie]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I'm not saying she WAS by the way, but that having a previously consensual sexual relationship with someone does not mean you cannot be raped by said person. Like some seem to think it does.

Indeed.
More common than you expect as well.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Christmas treeza

The police wouldn't have to withhold evidence to get rape figures up... That would suggest that women are not being raped daily and they are.

Rape conviction stats are very low, though, especially in comparison to rape allegation stats... and even in comparison to how often charges go ahead.

[Vicky.]

Times story

A judge has called for an inquiry after the trial of a student accused of rape collapsed because police had failed to reveal evidence proving his innocence.

Liam Allan, 22, spent almost two years on bail and three days in the dock at Croydon crown court before his trial was halted yesterday.

The judge demanded a review of disclosure of evidence by the Metropolitan Police, Britain’s biggest force, and called for an inquiry at the “very highest level” of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). He warned of the risks of “serious miscarriages of justice” after hearing that, to save costs, material was not always handed to defence lawyers.

Mr Allan, a criminology undergraduate at Greenwich University, had been warned that he would be jailed for at least ten years if found guilty after being charged with six rapes and six sexual assaults against a woman who told police that she does not enjoy sex. Mr Allan said the sex was consensual and that the woman was acting maliciously because he would not see her again after he started university.

His lawyers had repeatedly been refused access to records from the woman’s telephone because police insisted that there was nothing of interest for the prosecution or defence, the court was told.

When a new prosecution barrister took over the case the day before the start of the trial, he ordered police to hand over any telephone records. It was revealed that they had a computer disk containing copies of 40,000 messages.

They showed that she continued to pester Mr Allan for “casual sex”, told friends how much she enjoyed it with him and discussed her fantasies of being raped and having violent sex.

Jerry Hayes, the prosecuting barrister, told the court yesterday that he would offer no evidence. “I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable,” he said.

Mr Hayes, a former Tory MP and criminal barrister for 40 years, added: “There could have been a very serious miscarriage of justice, which could have led to a very significant period of imprisonment and life on the sex offenders register. It appears the [police] officer in the case has not reviewed the disk, which is quite appalling.”

Speaking outside court, Mr Allan told The Times: “I can’t explain the mental torture of the past two years. I feel betrayed by the system which I had believed would do the right thing — the system I want to work in.” His mother, Lorraine Allan, 46, a bank worker, hugged her son as he was surrounded by friends who had been lined up to give character evidence if the trial continued.

“In the current climate, in these sorts of cases, you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent,” she said. “The assumption is there is no smoke without fire.”

Radhia Karaa, a district crown prosecutor, wrote to the court admitting that the handling of the telephone downloads “has fallen below the standard that we expect”. Judge Peter Gower found Mr Allan not guilty on all charges. “There is something that has gone wrong and it is a matter that the CPS, in my judgment, should be considering at the very highest level,” he said. “Otherwise there is a risk not only of this happening again but that the trial process will not detect what has gone wrong and there will be a very serious miscarriage of justice. He [Mr Allan] leaves the courtroom an innocent man without a stain on his character.”

The judge said that police must tell prosecutors about all material collected during their investigations. “It seems to me to be a recipe for disaster if material is not viewed by a lawyer,” he said. “Something has gone very, very wrong in the way this case was investigated and brought to court.”

Julia Smart, for the defence, said she received the details of the woman’s text messages on the evening before she was due to cross-examine her, so stayed up reading them. When she told the court what she had found, the trial was halted. She said she believed that evidence from phones was being withheld from defence lawyers to save money.

Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, has pushed to increase the prosecution and conviction of sexual offences. Rapes recorded by police have risen from 12,295 in 2002-03 to 45,100 last year but the number of rapes referred to the CPS for a decision on charging has stayed broadly static. Of the 35,000 adult and child rapes recorded by police in 2015-16, just over 6,800 were referred to police, a fall of about 690 on the previous year, according to Rape Monitoring Group figures. A Met spokeswoman said: “We are aware of this case being dismissed and are carrying out an urgent assessment to establish the circumstances.”

not sure if we are allowed to copy and paste full articles or not, but since its behind a paywall...

Still cannot make any sense of the polices actions in all of this.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Still cannot make any sense of the polices actions in all of this.

My opinion? It sounds like there was a lot of data and they probably didn't bother to have someone go through it properly before simply believing the person making the claim and making an arrest / charges... at which point someone decided to cover up that oversight by saying there was nothing on there worth saying. Potentially... they never looked through them.

But yeah, reading that again it sounds basically like the sexual encounter happened, she talked (favourably) about it to friends afterwards and messaged him multiple times about hooking up again, was turned down, and then reported the initial hook-up as not being consensual...

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Toy Santa

My opinion? It sounds like there was a lot of data and they probably didn't bother to have someone go through it properly before simply believing the person making the claim and making an arrest / charges... at which point someone decided to cover up that oversight by saying there was nothing on there worth saying. Potentially... they never looked through them.

But yeah, reading that again it sounds basically like the sexual encounter happened, she talked (favourably) about it to friends afterwards and messaged him multiple times about hooking up again, was turned down, and then reported the initial hook-up as not being consensual...

I find that quite odd, given the police tend to disbelieve people making rape allegations, and also tend to try to find some way to blame the victim

Seems the total opposite happened in this one case

[bitontheslide]

there are a few possible explanations, my top 2 would be - meeting targets set for the department or the chap had previous history with the police that they didn't get a conviction for so were balancing things up

[Denver]

I wouldn't rule out her knowing someone dealing with it

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I find that quite odd, given the police tend to disbelieve people making rape allegations, and also tend to try to find some way to blame the victim

Seems the total opposite happened in this one case

I'd imagine that it totally depends on the various prejudices of the officers directly involved and also the personalities and circumstances of the suspect and claimant. It shouldn't... but I'm sure it does.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Santa

Rape conviction stats are very low, though, especially in comparison to rape allegation stats... and even in comparison to how often charges go ahead.

What are you saying that all these 'allegations' are so flimsy they're having to withhold evidence to get a conviction through? What a crock of ****.

regardless I was perfectly aware it was in relation to convictions thank you, I didn't need that explaining to me .

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Christmas treeza

What are you saying that all these 'allegations' are so flimsy they're having to withhold evidence to get a conviction through? What a crock of ****.

regardless I was perfectly aware it was in relation to convictions thank you, I didn't need that explaining to me .

Its not about the allegations being flimsy its because the nature of the crime (the fact that there are very rarely any witnesses) means that securing a conviction is notoriously difficult.

And given that you seemed to be questioning "why they would need to resort to underhand tactics to raise conviction stats", when genuine incidences of rape happen every day, it sort of seems like you did need that explained to you .

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Santa

Its not about the allegations being flimsy its because the nature of the crime (the fact that there are very rarely any witnesses) means that securing a conviction is notoriously difficult.

And given that you seemed to be questioning "why they would need to resort to underhand tactics to raise conviction stats", when genuine incidences of rape happen every day, it sort of seems like you did need that explained to you .

I'm not questioning it... it was an entirely rhetorical question. They wouldn't have to resort to that the force a conviction.That was my point, having said that why are you trawling after me again in a vain attempt to interpret what I say?

Are you really so short sighted to suggest that unless there are witnesses it is impossible to assess if a woman has been raped?... This is a prime example of my issue in another thread you accused me of having no direct experience from which to draw a conclusion on one issue and concluded my input was irrelevant... and here you are voicing how difficult it is for a woman to prove she was raped :/

I will make myself very clear to you to prevent you feeling the need to school me on my own points.
There are cases where it is very obvious a woman has been raped without witnesses, that was my point here. I am aware of the difficulty in securing a conviction in cases of date rape or historical abuse.

[Kizzy]

Looking at stats a couple of very disturbing figures just leapt out...

Rape Crisis England & Wales headline statistics 2016-17

Where age is known, 2,651 were aged 15 or under, an increase of 55% on last year; those aged under 25 represented 36% of service users. Over 30 times more children reported multiple assaults than last year - 904 compared with 29 in 2015-16.

That is a really shocking and frightening jump!

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/statistics.php

[Toy Soldier]

Why am I "trawling after you" when you laid out some quite blatant sarcastic bait in your own post? You even put it in italics . You might think that you can be snarky and leave it ambiguous enough that I'm not going to call you out on it or... Something... But I think it'll save us a lot of time if I just point out that you're wrong there. If you choose to "call me out", I'm gonna respond, and I'm not going to drop it or pretend that I don't know exactly what you were doing . Sooo if you don't want to be "trawled after", you might want to reign in the snippy sarcasm. Either that, or stop complaining about it. Or neither and I'll merrily "trawl along". Would be lying if I said I care either way.


As for "why do I feel qualified to point out that rape is difficult to prove"? Because there is a mountain of statistical evidence that demonstrates without question that it is difficult to prove. If you can't see how that's different to your opinion that "games reduce empathy cos Kizzy thinks games probably reduce empathy", then I really can't help you, and nor can anyone else.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Santa

Why am I "trawling after you" when you laid out some quite blatant sarcastic bait in your own post? You even put it in italics . You might think that you can be snarky and leave it ambiguous enough that I'm not going to call you out on it or... Something... But I think it'll save us a lot of time if I just point out that you're wrong there. If you choose to "call me out", I'm gonna respond, and I'm not going to drop it or pretend that I don't know exactly what you were doing . Sooo if you don't want to be "trawled after", you might want to reign in the snippy sarcasm. Either that, or stop complaining about it. Or neither and I'll merrily "trawl along". Would be lying if I said I care either way.


As for "why do I feel qualified to point out that rape is difficult to prove"? Because there is a mountain of statistical evidence that demonstrates without question that it is difficult to prove. If you can't see how that's different to your opinion that "games reduce empathy cos Kizzy thinks games probably reduce empathy", then I really can't help you, and nor can anyone else.

It was intentional and in italics as to make it crystal I was referring to your love of reiterating my comments in your own unique way, there was nothing snarky about it.

You used italics in your initial response to me, were you being snarky?

The comment you made was not in relation to any stats or evidence it was directed at myself personally... that I was not a gamer or a game developer therefore my comments were irrelevant, and yet here you are not with any actual evidence for your claim other than the great TS chose to impart his knowledge on the subject.

Not once did I make any reference to empathy,so you have not only misinterpreted me but you're now misquoting me too in your quest to mansplain my own views to me!

Bravo! You've surpassed yourself.

[Northern Monkey]

“Mansplain”

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

“Mansplain”

You started it

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Christmas treeza

It was intentional and in italics as to make it crystal I was referring to your love of reiterating my comments in your own unique way, there was nothing snarky about it.

You did it as snarky bait to refer back to the "mansplaining" thread because you believe you've found an Achilles heel that "gets at me".

in your quest to mansplain my own views to me!

[Toy Soldier]

Basically Kizzy, it seems like you've decided that I can't respond to any of your posts to disagree in any way, because doing so is apparently me "trawling you" or trying to "mansplain". It's neither. It's me thinking you're incorrect and stating my own opinion. But this is a discussion forum, and that's what it's for, so if you don't like it... I'm afraid it's straight up tough ****. I'm going to keep doing it, no matter how many times you bleat "mansplaining" at me or accuse me of singling you out or "trawling" your posts in an attempt to shut down criticism of them.

I'm not really interested in the snidiness or the whining so I'm going to leave this here, and carry on as I have been.

[DemolitionRed]

Originally Posted by QueenOfSheba

You dont tell someone you want them to rape you then cry Rape

This is incorrect. I could, for example, tell my partner I have a fantasy about rape and rough sex. He, if he has any sense, is going to be extremely cautious about how this fantasy is approached. He would need to protect himself from later being accused of rape and protect me because perhaps its just a fantasy and the reality could make me freak out.

Everything is consensual up and until one person says 'no'. My partner could play that rape game with me or have rough sex with me right up to the point of me saying 'no' or using a previously arranged safe word. If I call out that safe word, then he must stop because if he doesn't, he could find himself up on a charge in a court of law. Remember, we all have the right to change our mind at any given moment.

A fantasy is nothing more than a sexual desire and if you are going to make it reality, you better make sure you have enough control to stop that fantasy when things start going Pete Tonge.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Santa

You did it as snarky bait to refer back to the "mansplaining" thread because you believe you've found an Achilles heel that "gets at me".

I wasn't being snarky, my use of the word explain was a direct reference to you mansplaining , I've come to expect it from you now.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Santa

Basically Kizzy, it seems like you've decided that I can't respond to any of your posts to disagree in any way, because doing so is apparently me "trawling you" or trying to "mansplain". It's neither. It's me thinking you're incorrect and stating my own opinion. But this is a discussion forum, and that's what it's for, so if you don't like it... I'm afraid it's straight up tough ****. I'm going to keep doing it, no matter how many times you bleat "mansplaining" at me or accuse me of singling you out or "trawling" your posts in an attempt to shut down criticism of them.

I'm not really interested in the snidiness or the whining so I'm going to leave this here, and carry on as I have been.

Look at you winding yourself up about it.... Just stop trying to suggest I have in some way misunderstood the premise of the thread, I hadn't and your input wasn't required TS.