Interesting Links for 14-03-2013

[andrewducker]

• The Dark Knight Rises was the best selling movie of 2012. Still beaten by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Fifa 13.
  (tags: music games uk movies media )
• Rape investigations are undermined by the false belief that false accusations are rife.
  (tags: police rape )
• I had no idea there was such a charge as "Recklessly producing household electricity"
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Comments

[drdoug]

presumably her husband was found guilty of rape or her conviction for saying he had not raped her wouldn't stand

If this is the Ms A case from the report, it wasn't quite like that, going on the details in the court report on her appeal here http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/a-v-r-judgment.pdf. (Warning: It's very distressing, and certainly made me sympathise almost entirely with her and utterly loathe her husband.)

The husband's rape charge came up while she was still insisting that she'd lied about him having raped her. The CPS offered no evidence, and he was found not guilty.

Subsequently, she was charged with two almost-identical counts of perverting the course of justice: one on the grounds that she'd lied when she made the allegation of rape, the other on the grounds that she'd lied when she made the retraction. She pleaded not guilty to the first charge, and guilty to the second. The CPS offered no evidence on the first charge after she'd put in the pleas.

(I was slightly surprised that the charges worked that way - if it were me I'd have had a single charge that didn't require proving which was true, just that they couldn't both be. But I'm not a CPS lawyer.)

She initially got a custodial sentence (as you'd expect for the offence), but it was swiftly reduced to a community order on appeal. This report adds the distressing detail that she had four children whose situation "had become so uncertain and problematic that the court, as then constituted, believed that it would be of positive assistance to all of them to make a community based order, taking immediate effect".

Although her appeal against sentence was upheld, and pretty quickly, her appeal against conviction failed. The revised CPS guidance came out as a result of her case being reported, and under the new guidelines, she would not have been prosecuted. (Which makes me think better of the guidelines.) But the court held that this didn't change the law, so the conviction had to stand.

The appeal court were very careful about whether the initial rape had happened or not, saying that they'd proceed on the basis that the allegations were true, since that was no longer a disputed fact in the case before them, but noting "Nevertheless it is only fair to the appellant's husband to record that he has consistently denied the allegations and has not had any opportunity publicly to challenge or refute them."

From some of the details in the report about what he was getting up to, I strongly suspect that the husband was at least convicted of various offences in breaching bail conditions and non-molestation orders.

(I'm fairly sure that this case is distinct from another high-profile case that hit the media in the same sort of time span, where a Ms A (or Miss A) was convicted of perverting the course of justice after making false allegations of rape, after the alleged perpetrator had spent 3 years in prison.)

The report is rather sad reading in fact.

Yes. This whole area is deeply upsetting, and not easy. It's sort-of reassuring to know that the number of women who made rape allegations which they then withdrew and were then referred to the CPS for prosecution for perverting the course of justice is small. But I suspect that knowing that this can happen at all makes it harder for a rape or domestic violence victim who's conflicted about reporting it. And by god we don't want to be making things harder for people in that situation.

On the plus side, I do think we are making some overall net progress. For one thing, I can remember the time when in law a wife could not be raped by her husband. Though obviously we have far to travel yet.

[steer]

It's the same case (same initials and date). I don't think that the report you link contradicts my summary but adds the details that she was charged with perverting the course of justice for both claims which is an interesting detail (and gets round my speculation of my saying her husband must have been found guilty).

It also adds the detail that she made up with him and breached his bail condition that he was to have no further contact with him. (They also managed to be in a road traffic accident together during the period he was supposed to not be in contact.)

The CPS summary is found on P7 of the report I linked.

Though obviously we have far to travel yet.

Indeed, though some of the sections of the report I link have moments of hope. E.g. the police informing a witness that a particular behaviour (not related to her original complaint) consituted rape, a fact she was unaware of.

Oh... genuine "For fucks sake" moment... A vs R summary you linked to includes quotes with her husband's real name.