Kate Williams wonders why the new government’s first thoughts are for those accused of rape

The first thrust of the Coalition – their gauntlet on the flagstone – has been to bestow the right of anonymity on those accused of rape.  Had I been a skipping, Pollyanna type, with a cheery ‘let’s see what they come up with first before passing judgment’ approach to this government – then this would have been my scales/eyes moment.

My first instinct was to blink rapidly and rifle through both parties’ manifestos for the paragraph I must have missed; then to shake the shoulders of those who Went Over, wailing “Look what you’ve done! They have chosen as their flagship policy one which declares that women lie about rape – and so easily and habitually that men accused of it need structural protection!”

So clunkingly inept is this policy that it’s tempting to imagine it has been pulled, at random, from the big LibCon lucky dip barrel.  But to do so would be to underestimate the Clegg-Cameron endeavour.  This ain’t no accident – it’s a marker, a line in the sand.

The reasons that rape victims have historically been protected by anonymity are so crashingly obvious that I’m embarrassed to rehearse them here. If you’ve ever given more than a passing thought to gender politics, do feel free to skip this next bit.

Pretty much every culture and every class has had a structural inclination to believe that women ‘ask for it’.

Since, historically, pretty much every culture and every class have had women’s chastity as an organising principle, “asking for it” has been widely perceived to be a dangerous thing to be accused of.   For this reason – and because so few of us would like to have the brutal, bloody detail of sexual assault idly discussed by our acquaintances – women have very often thought better of reporting rape.

This has been thought to be so self-evident a truth, and so inimical to justice, that – as far back as 1976, when it was still totally cool habitually to discriminate on, well,  any grounds –  our legal system decided that, while it couldn’t – wouldn’t – bin the whole reeking system, it would and could mitigate its bitterest injustice.

It offered a small, ragged and imperfect blanket of anonymity, behind which those humiliated by rape could hide from the contempt of their own communities.  And so, every day in homes and schools and offices and factories – women clutch this pitiful covering to themselves, and steel themselves for court.

Ah, but look: perched unsteadily on a golf-club stool of libertarian respectability, florid Mr Liberty is blustering beerily about parity.  He speaks for the Great Ignored – many of whom, by his account, have had their reputations smashed to smithereens by a malicious allegation of rape

While the rest of us survey the UK’s rape conviction stats (the lowest in Europe) and hang our heads in shame and anger and despair – Mr Liberty wants his Rights. If there’s anonymity to be had,  then it’s only fair that defendants should have some too. Why should rape victims have preferential treatment?

But here’s the thing. Rape victims aren’t being treated differently from rape defendants. They’re being treated differently from the victims of other types of crime. The Law has asked itself “is there a difference between a complainant of rape and a victim of other crimes” and thought – yes, actually, there is. For the cultural and social reasons delineated above, we need to give a special shield of justice to these women.

Less than a year ago, a Parliamentary commission led by cross-bencher Baroness Stern advised that nothing should be done without a deal more research into the incidence of false rape accusations – which thus far have been found to be no more widespread than for any other crime. We know that the minute percentage of rape allegations which are found to be unwarranted are overwhelmingly by mentally-ill women who are simply seeking attention –  and therefore don’t name an attacker at all.

The police themselves oppose a change, because it will prevent other victims recognising their attacker and coming forward, as happened in the Worboys ‘black cab’ case.

That any government should seek to legislate like this is shameful.  That the LibCon coalition has chosen – under no pressure whatsoever – to do this first is astounding.

It is ideology, gussied up in the accoutrements of common sense. It panders to the worst Mail-spawned delusions of middle England. It disregards the structural inequalities which underpin this country’s woeful rape conviction rates, in favour of a policy which voters have neither demanded nor voted for – but which foghorns ‘Freedom’.

Gather close, my dears. This is the new “progressive”.

Kate Williams is a writer and documentary film maker.


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16 Responses to “Kate Williams wonders why the new government’s first thoughts are for those accused of rape”

  1. Al Jahom says:

    Well I congratulate them – it’s long overdue.

    I may even go a step further and support Melanie Phillips’ suggestion that neither accuser or accused should be granted anonimity.

    Defendents in rape cases are hobbled by a skewing of the rules of evidence. Partly as a reult of this, 60% of rape charges that come to court result in a guilty verdicty.

    Fine. You get a guilty verdict, you name and shame – once all avenues of appeal are exhausted or abandoned.

    Meanwhile, men cleared of any wrongdoing walk free from court with their lives and reputations in tatters, having done NOTHING WRONG.

    If you think that’s acceptable, then you simply re-inforce my hostilisty towards feminism.

    I’m sick and tired of women demanding equality, then immediately thereafter demanding special treatment.

    Minette Marrin and Melanie Philips can see this. Why can’t you?

    Finally, who cares what the police think? They are slaves to Home Office targets and hostage to a discredited ideology of diversity and equality uber alles.

    AJ

  2. Tia Fisher says:

    Fantastic. Thank you so much for speaking up Kate. I hope someone listens.

  3. M'West says:

    “The Law has asked itself “is there a difference between a complainant of rape and a victim of other crimes” and thought – yes, actually, there is. For the cultural and social reasons delineated above, we need to give a special shield of justice to these women.The Law has asked itself “is there a difference between a complainant of rape and a victim of other crimes” and thought – yes, actually, there is. For the cultural and social reasons delineated above, we need to give a special shield of justice to these women.”

    Don’t most of these arguments stack up to support the anonymity of the accused? Rape is a different crime, so to be accused of rape is very different to being accused of, say, assault or burglary? Do you ever rid yourself of the accusation even if a court of law finds you innocent?

    Either way, I can see the sense in the policy. Although it wouldn’t have been one of the first things I would have legislated on had I been part of a coalition government meant to be sorting out our deficit.

  4. Al Jahom says:

    By the way, Kate.

    Does this case demand “a deal more research”? Or does it neatly sum up why you are blinkered and cruelly misguided?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280926/Student-cleared-rape-emerges-second-man-committed-suicide-falsely-accused-woman.html

    AJ

  5. Richard Nabavi says:

    Well, I followed your argument with interest, and was looking forward to your getting on to the meat of the question. Then the article abruptly ended before you got there.

    Nothing. Not a mention of the fact that there are clear examples of the most egregious injustice done to men who have been (intentionally or not) falsely accused, and their lives wrecked. Not a mention of the fact there are well-documented examples of deliberately false accusation, specifically designed as acts of vengeance. These are, no doubt, rare. But they do exist.

    Is there a Part II of your article, Kate, which will address these injustices?

  6. johnf says:

    All feminists know that all men are by definition rapists and therefore all men are by definition guilty.

    So stop whingeing.

  7. DB says:

    You said:

    “The Law has asked itself “is there a difference between a complainant of rape and a victim of other crimes” and thought – yes, actually, there is. For the cultural and social reasons delineated above, we need to give a special shield of justice to these women.”

    Surely the same is true of those accused of rape? If not, please delineate further.

  8. John R says:

    @Al Jahom “Defendents in rape cases are hobbled by a skewing of the rules of evidence. Partly as a reult of this, 60% of rape charges that come to court result in a guilty verdict.”

    If, as I inferred, you’re saying that the conviction rate for rape should be _lower_ than that, then I do believe you have a serious misunderstanding of our judicial system. True, the court treats defendents as if they’re innocent until proven otherwise. However, the Crown brings people to court on the basis that they are guilty. We trust the Crown Prosecution Service to find the guilty people and prosecute them, so in a perfectly efficient world, the conviction rate would be 100% with 0% false convictions. Saying that the conviction rate should be lower assumes either than guilty people should go free, or that the CPS are routinely bringing innocent people to court. I’d agree that the CPS is failing, but in the sense that rape cases aren’t being prosecuted harshly or regularly enough.

    Also, I’d hope that someone convicted of rape receives a punishment way harsher than a mere ‘name and shame.’

  9. Richard Nabavi says:

    .. Such as this one, where one innocent man was driven to suicide and another put through seven months of hell:

    A judge has attacked prosecutors whose decision to charge a medical student with rape was based on allegations made by a woman who had previously accused another man of the same offence. The man had subsequently committed suicide.

    Jurors who took only 45 minutes to acquit Olumide Fadayomi of attacking the 21-year-old Sheffield woman were later told by Judge Patrick Robertshaw that the case should never have come to court.

    Some gasped and wept when they learnt that 18 months earlier the complainant had made rape claims “lacking in credibility” against a young man who took his own life “when facing that allegation”.

    The judge noted that, unlike the men she accused, the woman involved “of course enjoys the full benefit of anonymity”.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7135372.ece

    I await Part II of your article with interest, Kate. Perhaps you have an alternative suggestion to address the injustice.

  10. The Grim Reaper says:

    I look forward to seeing how Kate replies to all the criticism made of this rather daft piece.

  11. Emma Church says:

    Oh dear, Kate, you appear to have made the fatal error of writing a piece supporting the rights of rape victims and open justice. Now you are being corrected by commenters who clearly have considered opinions on the subject, quoting such esteemed publications as the Daily Mail.

    Firstly, and if nothing else, is IS a strange policy to be amongst the very first of the coalition government. Which is the primary point of the article.

    Secondly, it is worth considering that all policies regarding anonymity in the courts are based on a) the vital principle of open justice and b) the importance of presenting the best possible case (sorry, this does mean the one that’s most likely to end up in prosecution, it’s what the CPS do) in mind.

    Around 85% of cases end in a conviction. Cases without any kind of basis (i.e. random false accusations) are NOT brought in willy-nilly on the whim of accusers; it’s a long process that requires endless evaluation of the strength of the case, as you would know if you’d ever tried to bring any kind of criminal case to court through the CPS. Rape victims (and children, and vulnerable adult witnesses) are protected because the quality of evidence in a case is likely to be diminished otherwise.

    Victims of sexual assault and rape are more likely to come forward and their attackers more likely to be prosecuted when those victims are anonymised. This means the perpetrator is more likely to be caught and convicted, and justice done.

    The CPS has little to no interest in the protection of reputation, only in successful prosecution (as John R rightly recognises above). Anonymising sexual offence defendants does not make a successful prosecution more likely – if anything, it renders it less likely as any evidence based on recognition of the suspect will not come forward.

    When victims of sexual offences were made anonymous, initially so were defendants in the cases. This latter aspect was later repealed. It is worth considering why it was no longer considered necessary, and why the situation is different now.

    Anonymising defendants is not in the interests of open justice or justice generally. Open justice means that everyone can see the law is properly followed – and if a defendant is innocent, to be cleared openly.

    Do not imagine that if a defendant’s name is not published during a trial, and then they are found not guilty, that the kind of people who go about ‘wrecking their lives’ on the basis of charges, false or otherwise, will somehow be dissuaded. The people who know the defendant personally enough to make their life difficult post-trial will know who they are regardless. It is better to clear them openly, so that the truth is available to scrutiny, than to encourage whispers behind closed doors.

    And those commenters who say feminism as though it is a dirty word – who are ‘sick and tired of women demanding equality, then immediately thereafter demanding special treatment’ – have never actually engaged with any feminists, and need to educate themselves before embarrassing themselves further. The idea of equality as somehow favouring women is an old trope, as discussed here: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/faq-arent-feminists-just-sexists-towards-men/

    If anybody should be sick and tired of anything, it should be people who are habitually subjected to lazy, cliched, ill-thought-out comment on rights and the law, particularly concerning women, by people who have never educated themselves in any depth about any of them, beyond reading a single opinion column. I, certainly, have seen them all before. Have a look at http://www.derailingfordummies.com/ to see whether or not your objection is covered. It’s an excellent guide to avoiding offending through ignorance or badly conceived rhetoric when discussing an -ism.

    Such important topics as rape, rights, and the law deserve thoughtful discussion by educated people. This knee-jerk ‘ugh, feminism’ reaction does not help anyone.

  12. Paul says:

    Why does Kate, throughout her article, ignore the fact that males can be victims of rape too, instead only referring to women who have been raped? Does ignoring the male victims, pretty much implying that they are not important in this matter, not make it less likely that males will go to the police, seeing as the likes of Kate like to pretend they do not exist? This isn’t men against women, it is a group of evil people against all other people. Stop with the sexism Kate, and your views are more accessible to all.

  13. Richard Nabavi says:

    Thank you, Emma Church, for your insight into Labour thinking:

    Such important topics as rape, rights, and the law deserve thoughtful discussion by educated people

    For those you consider ‘uneducated’, for reasons which say more about you than about those who have raised important points regarding Kate’s article, perhaps you would care to address the issue which Kate didn’t. Do you have any alternative proposals to address this problem?

    Or perhaps you don’t care that a man was driven to suicide by a false and anonymous accusation, and that the false accuser was then able to try to wreck a second innocent man’s life? (You do realise, I suppose, that it was not only the Daily Mail which reported this case). Or about the other, well-documented, injustices of a similar sort, which are very real, even if not very common?

    Please clarify, if you can bring yourself to take into account the concerns of the ‘uneducated’.

    Meanwhile, I look forward to Kate answering for herself. She seemed to be making a good argument until she gave up before getting to the principal issue.

    Dr. Richard Nabavi

  14. Ed Borgnis says:

    It was good to read Emma’s response in a comment thread dominated by men. However – one point sticks out:

    “Anonymising sexual offence defendants does not make a successful prosecution more likely – if anything, it renders it less likely as any evidence based on recognition of the suspect will not come forward.”

    Perhaps I’m wrong here, but I can’t think of a trial for any other crime during which it would be appropriate for the prosecution to enter the proceedings with the knowledge that they are unlikely to achieve a conviction without strength being brought to their case through ‘recognition of the suspect’ (or other late evidence). I would have thought such cases shouldn’t even make it to court.

    eg ‘He might have robbed the bank, but we’re hoping that when other robbed banks see his face on the cover of a newspaper that they’ll recognise him as the man who robbed them’ doesn’t really cut it.

    You can’t base the legal process on the impact of the noise surrounding it – the whole thing would implode.

    A decision whether to grant the same treatment to defendents and victims in any legal case is based on weighing up the ‘risk’ to both associated with either a conviction or prosecution. In the absence of any way of actually analysing this risk (ie data about false rape accusations), you have to treat both defendent and victim the same.

    Although there is an underlying feminist / equalist / sexist (/whatever) issue here – it has to be considered less important than the legal process – a process that attempts to mitigate any factor that threatens to unbalance the proceedings.

  15. sussexlad says:

    Kate,

    You mention the Worboys case which I am very familiar with as I live close to where he lived. I don’t think that anyone is suggesting anonymity for the likes of him as he had multiple accusers and there was a lot of evidence. However, having said that, even if he had remained anonymous until conviction, women would still have been able to come forward after he had been convicted. Why do you have such a problem with anonymity until conviction? I would be very interested to know.

  16. Phil Ruse says:

    What I find a little distressing, Kate, is that you feel the need to lay a minefield of insults to those who feel a little unease at the possibility that for the “cultural and social reasons” you mention it sometimes appears that this is one crime where there is a presumption of guilt. I have the same unease over this suggested anonymity for the accused but I object to the threat of being tagged a ‘daily mail reader’ for daring to at least question the issue.

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