Victims should be allowed to testify behind screens in court. It must be incredibly intimidating to face your rapist face to face in court.
This is a great step, when I was serving as a juror our case was that of a sexual assault and rape. And honestly the jury conversations were mind boggling – more effort needs to be made to ensure there is understanding before asking 12 randoms to decide on sensitive cases like these.
There were comments such as ‘if she was really scared why did she go with him to McDonald’s’ – urm maybe because she was trapped in a house with her attacker and she wanted a reason to get out and this was the safest bet.
‘why didn’t her mum believe her at the start, that’s suspicious’ – maybe because some assholes believe their partners over their children
And many more awfully ignorant comments and thought processes being displayed. It’s no wonder there is such a low conviction and prosecution rate of such crimes in this country.
I’m going to withhold judgement until there are more details as to what makes the specialist courts so specialist. If it’s going to undermine/erode the foundation of innocent until proven guilty and shift the burden of proof onto the accused then it’s a hard no from me.
The major problem convictions face, is that the vast majority of cases are he said/she said, with no actual evidence.
One person says it was consensual the other says it wasn’t, and that can’t end in many successful prosecutions if you support the idea of “innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt” for criminal prosecutions. I.e that its better to have 90 criminals go free, then to imprison 10 innocent people.
Alot of evidence presented ends up being flimsy or misleading, and can even help the person who is lying, i.e suggesting that because two people went home together and seemed happy holding hands etc that it wasnt a rape.
Then there is a whole host of attacking people’s character in general in the hopes it might sway the decision while being of arguable relevance. I.e, this person is a police offer/lawyer/etc and should be trusted or this this person is a sex worker/homeless person/etc and should not be trusted.
Then you have diving into peoples phones/social media posts etc, trying to find something to get the other side with, while again being of questionable relevance.
In the end the vast majority of the time there isn’t evidence that could be defined as”proof beyond reasonable doubt” so the vast majority of cases do not result in a prosecution.
By its very nature rape is a hard crime to prove. Doesn’t mean we can lower the burden of proof and we HAVE to maintain innocent until proven guilty. Otherwise the system can so easily be abused by those in power. We have already seen how authoritarian states can use unfair and none exhaustive judicial processes in their favour.
Work backwards from the court process and see if we think there will ever be any meaningful change.
* Is the UK going to stop having juries ? Probably not. I can’t see us switching over to a system like France where the evidence is reviewed by judges, although I would prefer thos. Our legal system is a joke and court is a circus.
* are we going to change the level of proof required? No I can’t see us changing from balance of probabilities to beyond any reasonable doubt.
* are we going to change the definition of rape ? No, I can’t see it changing unless there was some inference where both parties have to be able to evidence enthusiastic consent but this would be a minefield and again present the exact same evidential difficulties.
* are we going to have more available evidence? No unless we ask people to start visually recording sexual encounters or having witnesses as standard. E.g. a recording that can only be accessed when making a complaint and no recording has an inference.
In the end unless we fully finance the police, CPS and courts everything else is just misdirection. We can pretend that new victim charters, new special courts, new special rape teams or lawyers or new anything will make a difference but it won’t.
The simple fact is that you are trying to prove beyond any reasonable doubt (in 90% of cases) the mindset of two people in an address.
I think a quicker turn around time is better for everyone (except the actually guilty and fuck them) so long as it doesn’t mean corners being cut.
But I don’t think this will “square the circle”: you can’t have fair trials AND a higher conviction rate (edit: I mean you can’t do this by fiddling with the courts). And if we have to choose then we have to choose the former.
Sure are they going to change the legal definition of rape while there at it
At the moment male victims of female rapists aren’t even considered by the law to be raped
Sigh.
Every time – *every time* – there’s a discussion about improving rape conviction rates on Reddit, there’s some who immediately leap to the idea that we have to completely do away with all due process and the only alternative to leading things as they are is to ban fair trials.
Which is odd, because when there’s discussion about say improving the conviction for fraud, you don’t get Redditors saying “Well, sad as it is, there’s just no way around reasonable doubt! How do you know that Gary isn’t just regretting a gift he made and is dragging Sam’s name through the dirt?”
Here’s some of the experiences rape victims have described when coming forward:
1. Having their clothes confiscated with no alternatives provided, meaning they had to ring friends and explain why they needed clothes brought to a police station.
2. Being asked repeatedly if they weren’t making it up to avoid offending a boyfriend – despite the fact the victim in question didn’t *have* a boyfriend.
3. Being asked to go through their entire sexual history with a stranger, while the accused is not.
4. Being told to turn over all devices, including work, and being given the choice to either drop the case or have to explain to their boss why they need to hand it over. Again, the accused in that case was not called upon to turn over *their* devices. This included a victim reporting a decades-old sexual assault and another whose phone then sat in a lab for 14 months.
5. Waiting over 1000 days for the case to be prosecuted.
6. Having to give multiple statements detailing the traumatic incident again and again over eight hours without a single officer allowing the victim to take a break.
7. Dealing with police forces – of which two fifths do not have specialist sexual assault units despite the prevalence of the crime – who, as we now know, can include officers who openly treat sexual assault as a laughing matter.
Are people seriously trying to suggest that if we addressed *any* of those that we’d be jeopardising the legal process? That providing more training, resources and support would mean suspects had their rights violated?
Because no matter how many times we have police force after police force apologising to victims and admitting that their treatment was inadequate, we still get Redditors insisting that there’s absolutely nothing that can be done!
so why not try to solve these problems for all crimes then? Grievous bodily harm for example?
10 comments
Victims should be allowed to testify behind screens in court. It must be incredibly intimidating to face your rapist face to face in court.
This is a great step, when I was serving as a juror our case was that of a sexual assault and rape. And honestly the jury conversations were mind boggling – more effort needs to be made to ensure there is understanding before asking 12 randoms to decide on sensitive cases like these.
There were comments such as ‘if she was really scared why did she go with him to McDonald’s’ – urm maybe because she was trapped in a house with her attacker and she wanted a reason to get out and this was the safest bet.
‘why didn’t her mum believe her at the start, that’s suspicious’ – maybe because some assholes believe their partners over their children
And many more awfully ignorant comments and thought processes being displayed. It’s no wonder there is such a low conviction and prosecution rate of such crimes in this country.
I’m going to withhold judgement until there are more details as to what makes the specialist courts so specialist. If it’s going to undermine/erode the foundation of innocent until proven guilty and shift the burden of proof onto the accused then it’s a hard no from me.
The major problem convictions face, is that the vast majority of cases are he said/she said, with no actual evidence.
One person says it was consensual the other says it wasn’t, and that can’t end in many successful prosecutions if you support the idea of “innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt” for criminal prosecutions. I.e that its better to have 90 criminals go free, then to imprison 10 innocent people.
Alot of evidence presented ends up being flimsy or misleading, and can even help the person who is lying, i.e suggesting that because two people went home together and seemed happy holding hands etc that it wasnt a rape.
Then there is a whole host of attacking people’s character in general in the hopes it might sway the decision while being of arguable relevance. I.e, this person is a police offer/lawyer/etc and should be trusted or this this person is a sex worker/homeless person/etc and should not be trusted.
Then you have diving into peoples phones/social media posts etc, trying to find something to get the other side with, while again being of questionable relevance.
In the end the vast majority of the time there isn’t evidence that could be defined as”proof beyond reasonable doubt” so the vast majority of cases do not result in a prosecution.
By its very nature rape is a hard crime to prove. Doesn’t mean we can lower the burden of proof and we HAVE to maintain innocent until proven guilty. Otherwise the system can so easily be abused by those in power. We have already seen how authoritarian states can use unfair and none exhaustive judicial processes in their favour.
Work backwards from the court process and see if we think there will ever be any meaningful change.
* Is the UK going to stop having juries ? Probably not. I can’t see us switching over to a system like France where the evidence is reviewed by judges, although I would prefer thos. Our legal system is a joke and court is a circus.
* are we going to change the level of proof required? No I can’t see us changing from balance of probabilities to beyond any reasonable doubt.
* are we going to change the definition of rape ? No, I can’t see it changing unless there was some inference where both parties have to be able to evidence enthusiastic consent but this would be a minefield and again present the exact same evidential difficulties.
* are we going to have more available evidence? No unless we ask people to start visually recording sexual encounters or having witnesses as standard. E.g. a recording that can only be accessed when making a complaint and no recording has an inference.
In the end unless we fully finance the police, CPS and courts everything else is just misdirection. We can pretend that new victim charters, new special courts, new special rape teams or lawyers or new anything will make a difference but it won’t.
The simple fact is that you are trying to prove beyond any reasonable doubt (in 90% of cases) the mindset of two people in an address.
I think a quicker turn around time is better for everyone (except the actually guilty and fuck them) so long as it doesn’t mean corners being cut.
But I don’t think this will “square the circle”: you can’t have fair trials AND a higher conviction rate (edit: I mean you can’t do this by fiddling with the courts). And if we have to choose then we have to choose the former.
Sure are they going to change the legal definition of rape while there at it
At the moment male victims of female rapists aren’t even considered by the law to be raped
Sigh.
Every time – *every time* – there’s a discussion about improving rape conviction rates on Reddit, there’s some who immediately leap to the idea that we have to completely do away with all due process and the only alternative to leading things as they are is to ban fair trials.
Which is odd, because when there’s discussion about say improving the conviction for fraud, you don’t get Redditors saying “Well, sad as it is, there’s just no way around reasonable doubt! How do you know that Gary isn’t just regretting a gift he made and is dragging Sam’s name through the dirt?”
Here’s some of the experiences rape victims have described when coming forward:
1. Having their clothes confiscated with no alternatives provided, meaning they had to ring friends and explain why they needed clothes brought to a police station.
2. Being asked repeatedly if they weren’t making it up to avoid offending a boyfriend – despite the fact the victim in question didn’t *have* a boyfriend.
3. Being asked to go through their entire sexual history with a stranger, while the accused is not.
4. Being told to turn over all devices, including work, and being given the choice to either drop the case or have to explain to their boss why they need to hand it over. Again, the accused in that case was not called upon to turn over *their* devices. This included a victim reporting a decades-old sexual assault and another whose phone then sat in a lab for 14 months.
5. Waiting over 1000 days for the case to be prosecuted.
6. Having to give multiple statements detailing the traumatic incident again and again over eight hours without a single officer allowing the victim to take a break.
7. Dealing with police forces – of which two fifths do not have specialist sexual assault units despite the prevalence of the crime – who, as we now know, can include officers who openly treat sexual assault as a laughing matter.
Are people seriously trying to suggest that if we addressed *any* of those that we’d be jeopardising the legal process? That providing more training, resources and support would mean suspects had their rights violated?
Because no matter how many times we have police force after police force apologising to victims and admitting that their treatment was inadequate, we still get Redditors insisting that there’s absolutely nothing that can be done!
so why not try to solve these problems for all crimes then? Grievous bodily harm for example?