The Attorney General has suggested the law could be changed to give greater protection to alleged rape victims following the Ched Evans case.
The Welsh footballer was found not guilty of raping a 19-year-old woman at a retrial following a five-year battle to clear his name.
Other sexual activity is only allowed if it’s really important to the evidence.
Without it first time around he was convicted. With it, second time around, found not guilty.
I’d say that’s pretty important, wouldn’t you?
“Shadow solicitor general Nick Thomas-Symonds said there are “grave recent concerns about the admissibility of a complainant’s previous sexual history in rape trials”.
And he warned that “single high-profile cases can give rise to wider perceptions about the law”
They made it high profile and now they regret it? Cry me a river.
They seem keen enough on similar-fact evidence on the prosecution side: much more common, in fact.
What incentives did the offer the new witnesses to encourage them to testify. If I was them, I would be worrying that since I was in a similar position as Evans with the young lady, I may get charged for a similar offence.
OK …
Try The Secret Barrister‘s take
Pardon my effin – but the parade of feckin tw*ts seeking to promote themselves by playing up to the braying gaggles of PC lynch mobs needs confronting.
The law can be bad enough without assistance from naive feckwits trying to shout-in their agenda.
He only got off because of the evidence, therefore we shouldn’t allow evidence, etc.
The retrial found that a rape did not occur. That means there is one fewer rape and one fewer rapist than was previously thought. For anyone opposed to rape this should be a matter for rejoicing.
I’m becoming increasingly certain that I’m living in an asylum.
The case in which the first application of the law was found to be wrong means we should take steps to ensure that first application should also have been the last?
Fuck me.
Were I a cynic, I might begin to believe that if you are a certain type of person and want to rape a 12 year old with a few of your mates, the State will tacitly rent you a few for the weekend, whereas another type of person accused of rape should be locked up on hearsay evidence.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/the-woman-is-a-disaster-camille-paglia-on-hillary-clinton/
She has never complained she was raped. I have huge amounts of sympathy for her, for the way the SJW class have deliberately and knowingly ruined her life to get a football later jailed for being a cad.
Being a cad is not praiseworthy and probably (ymmv) immoral. It’s not criminal.
Later? Footballer.
What SE said
She never said that she was raped. The CPS should be put in the stocks.
From Theo’s excellent link, this is apposite:
“My philosophy of feminism,’ the New York-born 69-year-old explains, ‘I call street-smart Amazon feminism. I’m from an immigrant family. The way I was brought up was: the world is a dangerous place; you must learn to defend yourself. You can’t be a fool. You have to stay alert.’ Today, she suggests, middle-class girls are being reared in a precisely contrary fashion: cosseted, indulged and protected from every evil, they become helpless victims when confronted by adversity. ‘We are rocketing backwards here to the Victorian period with this belief that women are not capable of making decisions on their own. This is not feminism — which is to achieve independent thought and action. There will never be equality of the sexes if we think that women are so handicapped they can’t look after themselves.”
“Shadow solicitor general Nick Thomas-Symonds said there are “grave recent concerns about the admissibility of a complainant’s previous sexual history in rape trials”.
As I said before, this says a lot about the presumptions of what that history might contain. I would imagine there are several genuine rape victims out there whose sexual history might indicate that indeed she had not consented with a gang of blokes she didn’t know who carried her out of a nightclub. But the assumption is always that her sexual history will make her look bad. Why is that, then?
Because some barristers are very good at their jobs and, in many cases, the best way for them to do their job is to attack your personal credibility as the easiest way to cast doubt on the credibility of your evidence. Particularly with the British hypocrisy about sex, this makes anything other than (pre-alleged-rape) virginity or marital chastity an easy target in the witness box. Neither are particularly common these days.