When rape statments are withdrawn

Where the complainant does not wish to give evidence the case could not normally proceed. With intimates, withdrawal sometimes happens because the complainant is reunited with the suspect. Emotional and financial dependence was felt by police and lawyers to be a common reason for a woman feeling unable to pursue the allegation. In one case a complainant’s statement revealed that she wished to withdraw her allegation, although she still maintained that she had been raped: if her husband went to prison and lost his job, she would lose everything.

In interviews with police officers, it was suggested that it was important for them to warn the complainant about possible evidential difficulties with her case and what would happen if she went to court. The following quotes make the same basic point, but with different emphasis.

“We would always explain to them that they are going to get a hard time, we don’t sort of paint a rosy picture especially if… it’s one of consent but we’ll say that we will support them as much as we can and we are behind them. And we sort of prep a re them for what they are going to face and a lot of them realise that.”

“… if you do really think that it is going to be very difficult to prove, is it worth putting the victim through that and going to court and for them to find a jury don’t convict the person and then sometimes they could end up well nobody’s believed me at the end of the day, which is another sort of trauma for her.”

In warning complainants about the difficulty of securing a conviction, the police might put complainants off pursuing their case without meaning to. The four complainants who were interviewed felt that the police had actively encouraged them to withdraw their allegations. One complainant was told in no uncertain terms that the evidence in her case was weak, even given her injuries:

“I showed them my bruises right… and do you know what they said, ‘your bruises are not good enough’. I went ‘well what do you mean my bruises are not good enough? ’ – ‘your bruises ain’t good enough, you’ve got no case.’”

The manner in which the police deal with a complainant will obviously affect the way she feels. Even if they do not tell her to withdraw her allegation in so many words, she might be left feeling that it is her only option. An extreme example of this involved one complainant who recalled being taken to the police station where two male CID officers sat with her in a room and questioned her; she said that suggestions were made to her that sometimes women allege rape when it is not in fact true, and that her experience was likely to have been consensual given that the suspect was an ex-boyfriend of hers. Further, she alleged that, as far as they were concerned, blood which was found at the scene of the incident was seen as indicative only of ‘rough sex’ having occurred. At no point did the officers apparently take a statement from her, apart from recording her eventual decision to withdraw.

“They didn’t actually let me speak, I never wrote a statement with them, only to retract my complaint, that’s all I did. And that wasn’t my idea.”

Police and CPS law ye rs cited other fa c t o rs which might encourage rape complainants to withdraw their allegations. They thought that certain ethnic communities and religious groups put pressure on complainants to withdraw their allegations. Orthodox Jews were mentioned as one example. It was suggested that there needs to be more specific police training, so that they are better equipped to deal with sensitivities of this sort. As one lawyer put it:

“It may be difficult in [a big city] to cope with the diversity sometimes… police are not always experienced enough or trained enough to deal with pressures from cultural groups.”

Each of the complainants spoken to maintained that if they were raped again they would not report the attack to the police. Of course, too few complainants were interviewed to be able to generalise from their experiences. However, other research supports these findings. A study by Jennifer Temkin (1999), for example, documents the negative perception of rape victims about the way their cases were dealt with. Most complaints were of the disbelieving attitudes of the police and the insensitive ways in which cases were handled.

It should be pointed out that some stations attach a high priority to the care and support given to rape victims. This is reflected in initiatives such as the introduction of victim suites, often away from police premises, the appointment of chaperones in some forces, improved channels of communication to keep victims updated, improved training for officers of both genders and specialist help provided through Victim Support. However, until such initiatives become the rule as opposed to the exception and involve all those concerned, the task of improving police services is not yet complete (Adler, 1991; Temkin, 1999; Victim Support, 1996).

The “rape controversy”

Had an unfun week… many arguments with many people, mainly on the topic of rape… on people lying about being raped, using it to punish men… which is odd as last time I checked rape was not gender specific, men can be raped too and women can be rapists.
So thought would take some time to discuss the topic here.

Now firstly I know I am biased, I hate the idea of anyone lying about having being raped for several reasons, the major one being that it makes people question the truth of the stories of those of us who HAVE been raped. I don’t think that people who spread these ideas of people lying about it realise how much it hurts to have people call you a liar. When you are raped all control is lost, your perception of the world is shattered, it’s no longer a kind, nice, safe place, suddenly it becomes a unknown, scary place full of danger and dangerous people. You blame yourself, and you’re convinced that others will blame you too, that they will judge you, pick the event apart and find a way to confirm that, yes, it was your fault.

Imagine if you left your car parked outside your home, that you always leave it in that place, but then one day you go outside and its been broken into. Then you go to the police and instead of helping they say “well you shouldn’t have left it in the street”. Now yes, that may be a valid point, but it’s not really helpful is it? Instead of being helpful advice it instead makes it seem as if you caused the burglary rather than that you could have prevented it.

Last week someone also said to me that if there is no evidence then no crime occurred :/ , seriously? So therefore we can all do whatever we like as long as we are clever and don’t leave evidence? I could murder someone by pushing them off a bridge and be totally innocent as the evidence may point to suicide.
How many trials do you think have ended due to insuffient evidence? In fact most legal systems do not even use the word “innocent” in part for this reason, a lack of evidence may be grounds to end a trial but a lack of evidence by no means proves innocence… a lack of evidence is just that, no proof neither of innocence nor guilt.

In the cases of rape this idea of evidence can be even more complicated. For a start few (if any) rapists are stupid enough to commit the act in the middle of a crowded street, so that’s witnesses out of the question. That and the fact of bystander apathy, I mean how many times have you (the reader) walked past a man screaming at his partner, a woman crying on the floor, etc, and not intervened? How many people do you think have been cornered crying out for help only for no one to come? I can even give a few examples of this, the most well known of which has to be the story of the “good Samaritan”, which to be honest I expect most of you will have heard, but for those who have not I’ll give a quick overview: in this tale a man is mugged and left hurt in the road, as he lay there people walked past crossing over to the other side of the road and ignored his plight. Eventually a man came along and helped the man, hence the name of the story of “the good Samaritan”. Another example of this is that of Kitty Genovese, who in 1964 was walking to her car in New York when a man attacked her with a knife, she yelled out and as lights turned on in a nearby building the man fled, when no one appeared on the scene though he returned to continue the attack. The whole incident lasted over half an hour during which time she managed to drag herself to the door of a building and was witnessed by thirty-eight, but not one person intervened or even called the police.
In college all the women had to attend rape safety sessions, in which we were told that if we were ever in a situation where we needed help never to shout “help” nor “rape” but instead to call “fire” as people are more likely to come!!!
And even when there are witnesses how often do you think they actually come forward? Even when they do they get treated like liars or criminals themselves for not intervening, told that if what was happening was wrong then they would have done something wouldn’t they? So obviously they are lying or exaggerating. Let’s just ignore the idea that a person can be scared, let’s ignore the idea of self preservation, let’s ignore that the person may not have known what to do, instead obviously they are just lying.

How about DNA? Surely there is DNA evidence isn’t there? Well not all rapes leave DNA evidence, using an object is technically rape, and objects do not have DNA. Also rapists are not stupid, they do know that they have DNA, they do know that they will leave evidence. Some will even force their victim to shower after the event, or will put things in place to ensure that they cannot report the event for a period of time which will limit the available evidence. Even without this though it can take a person a whole fully comprehend what happened, and even longer before they feel able to talk about or admit it. After being raped you’re not thinking about the evidence, in fact you’ll do anything to not think about anything involving the incident at all. But you can still smell them, still feel them, feel the dirt on you, slowly working its way through your skin into your very being. All you want to do is clean it off, to clean them off, to forget about it, to get rid of anything and everything involving it, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, if you clean enough and deny it enough, then maybe it didn’t happen, maybe it was not real.

In fact quite often the main source of evidence comes from character witnesses, and on the basis of a few people saying that the accused is a “nice person” many cases are dropped… as if no person if capable of being nice but also committing a crime… as if any wrong doing can be forgiven or ignored due to a lifetime of “niceness”. If I was to shoplift and then have a few people say “no, she couldn’t have, she’s too nice for that” no one would drop the case, and the fact would be that I had still shoplifted, still committed a crime, and it’s almost a character requirement of abusers to be able to live a double life, otherwise, well they wouldn’t be able to abuse anyone would they? Abusers are masters of deception, able to seem perfectly kind, normal and functional to the outside world, maybe even respected, yet as soon as that front door closes become mean, violent and abusive. How often do we hear on the news neighbours of convicted criminals and abusers say how shocked they are as “they always seemed so nice”?
This can sort of be seen as an example of the “halo effect”. People strive to maintain consistency in their beliefs, often at the expense of the truth. If a person has some salient trait that is good, it tends to colour the way in which all his/her other characteristics are seen. In the eyes of other people they are distorted to fit in with the one estimable trait. People are unwilling to accept that others may be a mixture of good and bad: they try to see them as a consistent whole. So in this case as the character witnesses describe all the persons good traits and list any good deeds they have done people are less likely to be able to imagine them ever doing something bad, especially not something as bad as rape. This is exacerbated by the tendency of the victims character flaws and past sexual history being questioned and enforcised to portray them as “immoral” or “promiscuous”.

One other thing people bring up during this discussion is that some people report a rape only to revoke their statement at a later date, people then interperate this as meaning that the rape never occurred and the initial report was a lie. But you have to take into account how hard and stressful a court case is, especially when you have been raped and so already feel vulnerable. When you report a rape every aspect of your life is picked apart, people imply that you are lying, people take small aspects of your life and blow them up to turn you into the bad one, it’s a painful and stressful experience, and many people just cannot cope with it. Add to this the fact that you have to see the person who did this to you, have to sit in the same room as them, here them accuse your testimony as a life, listen to them blow up every character flaw, all while you have to relive the event over and over both in your mind and through describing it to others.

Ok, now let’s have a think about why on earth anyone would lie about such a thing. Revenge? Honestly what the hell would anyone have to do to you for you to think that the best revenge would be to accuse them of rape? There are a million and one ways to get revenge on someone, who on earth would jump to a rape accusation as their first revenge plan?

Let’s now move on to the statistics, I hate statistics… you can use statistics to prove or disprove basically anything, you can manipulate them to say whatever you want. Also statistics on the topic of rape are difficult to acquire, a lot of people never report what happened to them which naturally messes with the numbers. A lot of people don’t report what happened but do speak to anonymous helplines and charities, so we can get an idea of the figures from adding these to the police reports, but even then we cannot get a definite idea of exactly how many people have been raped. Another thing which often screws with the data is that some reports take children into account whereas others do not which obviously messes with the numbers.
If we were to assume that the 1 in 5 statistic is correct though is this really “fear mongering”. As I was told it was last week? I mean ok, 1 in 5 is a lot, but that still means that 4 in 5 (i.e. the majority) will never experience rape… in fact all the 1 in 5 statistic really means is that pretty much everyone at some point in their lives will know someone who has been raped.

Right… now for the bit that I’ve been putting off… the idea of justifications for rape… when I told someone that I had been raped more than once the person decided that obviously I was a pole-dancer or a hooker, so therefore is it ok to rape people in these professions? Personally I think not, I do not think that you can say that people working in the sex-trade are ok to rape, no one should be ok to rape, because rape is not ok.
Some people seem to think that it’s a woman’s own fault if they were wearing revealing clothing, drunk, alone, etc. But I think that is ridiculous… so what? Men are not responsible at all? Men are just these creatures who cannot help but have sex with anyone who has some skin on show or who has been drinking? I honestly think that this way of thinking is not only hurtful to women, but actually demeaning to men, men are not just masses of instinct who cannot help themselves, and implying that they are is sort of implying that they are a lower being than women…

I have never heard these excuses in the case of male rape though… nor in cases of female rapists. So what can we gather from this? Maybe that people in general either do not believe or think about rape being anything but a man raping a woman, or maybe people think it’s ok to rape women but that the idea of raping a man or of a woman raping someone is not ok? In either of these ideas isn’t the route the same? A bit of a sexist stance?
In fact the idea that all women should not go out (or deserve to be raped if they do) in certain outfits, should not drink, should not go to certain places, etc. is not really too large a leap from “get back in the kitchen” is it? So we should live in a world where men can do whatever they like but if a woman does anything on their own or feel sexually liberated then they are in the wrong and should be raped? In fact that sounds a lot like the world one of my abusers would have liked to have lived in, he used to use sexual violence as a form of “punishment” if/when I did wrong. I’ve lived in that world, and I never want to go back to it, nor would I ever wish that world on to anyone.

The other ridiculous argument I’ve heard in the last week is that the idea of and the statistics surrounding rape are a “feminist propaganda” spreading fear and hatred of men… I don’t even know where to start with this… As I’ve already said rape is not limited to men attacking women, but can be men attacking men, women attacking women, and women attacking men. Also, feminism isn’t about hating men, I’m not going to write a essay on what feminism is right now but basically anyone who thinks it’s about hating men really doesn’t know much about the topic.
Also, if we quickly think of the logistics of this we’ll see that it’s not really feasible; this idea relies on a MALE DOMIATED police force altering the statistics of reported rapes. Actually, to be honest I don’t think I need to continue that point as I think it speaks for itself.

What causes Abuse?

The causes of interpersonal abuse are complex and overlapping. However, the following are widely regarded to be some of the most important factors:

• Early learning experiences: This factor is sometimes described as the “life cycle” of abuse. Many abusive parents were themselves abused as children and have learned to see hurtful behavior as normal childrearing. At the other end of the life cycle, some adults who abuse their elderly parent are paying back the parent for abusing them in their early years.
• Ignorance of developmental timetables: Some parents have unrealistic expectations of children in terms of the appropriate age for toilet training, feeding themselves, and similar milestones, and attack their children for not meeting these expectations.
• Economic stress: Many caregivers cannot afford part-time day care for children or dependent elderly parents, which would relieve some of their emotional strain. Even middle-class families can be financially stressed if they find themselves responsible for the costs of caring for elderly parents before their own children are financially independent.
• Lack of social support or social resources: Caregivers who have the support of an extended family, religious group, or close friends and neighbors are less likely to lose their self-control under stress.
• Substance abuse: Alcohol and mood-altering drugs do not cause abuse directly, but they weaken or remove a person’s inhibitions against violence toward others. In addition, the cost of a drug habit often gives a substance addict another reason for resenting the needs of the dependent person. A majority of workplace bullies are substance addicts.
• Mental disorders: Depression, personality disorders, dissociative disorders, and anxiety disorders can all affect parents’ ability to care for their children appropriately. A small percentage of abusive parents or spouses are psychotic.
• Belief systems: Many men still think that they have a “right” to a relationship with a woman; and many people regard parents’ rights over children as absolute.
• The role of bystanders: Research in the social sciences has shown that one factor that encourages abusers to continue their hurtful behavior is discovering that people who know about or suspect the abuse are reluctant to get involved. In most cases, bystanders are afraid of possible physical, social, or legal consequences for reporting abuse. The result, however, is that many abusers come to see themselves as invulnerable.

worrying attitudes about violence and gender roles in Scottish schools

89 primary seven children at five Glasgow primaries were questioned on their attitudes and aspirations towards gender roles and behaviour. The results from the 10 and 11 year olds are deeply worrying…

• 91% said that a man was justified in punching his partner when he found out she had had an affair.
• about 80% of the children said a man had cause to slap his partner because she did not have the dinner ready on time
• 74% of the girls say they expect to modify their behaviour and narrow expectations once they are married and had children

One of the girls said: “I want to be a dancer or a doctor. But when I grow up and have babies I will work part-time in the shop down the road.”

These findings, in effect, reflect that these attitudes are still widely held in Scotland… I find it deeply worrying, that even in 2010 these attitudes and ideas survive to this extent…