Crowd Funding a Prosecution for a serious offence?

Vonhelmet said:
Indeed, so I rather wonder why you went off on one about how she was just very drunk.

That was what you said, right?


Indeed, so again I wonder why you seem so certain that she was merely drunk.
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From the BBC source...


'Toxicology tests, taken almost nine hours after her last memory, showed Ms Hunt was at least two times over the drink drive limit, but came back negative for any signs of the date rape drug GHB.'

And again you can't disprove 100% that the woman didn't ingest knowingly or otherwise any other drug. A scientist can only say that a range of tests found no evidence for the previous ingestion of a given list of substances....

Again you seem to know nothing about evidence in law in the UK and (forensic) science.

Whoose 'going of on one again'? ....

Care to try again.....
 
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Moses said:
I realise the problems discussing what a woman’s perspective might be, on a predominately male computer forum... but I’d imagine the main barriers to coming forward are,

- The perception about how they’ll be treated etc, which is heavily affected by the way we have victim blaming etc in our media.

- The fact it was horrifically traumatic and they don’t want to go over it all. At least straight away.

- The fact it was horrifically traumatic and they don’t want to have to go through what’s necessary from a forensics point of view - the idea of anyone having to collect dna etc with a rape kit must be unimaginably awful.

- The knowledge that the conviction rate is terrible.

They’re the first things which came to mind. The first we can do something about, but I don’t think it’s the biggest barrier. The second and third we can’t do much about, other than promoting the reality of what happens/trying to demystify, but I’m not sure that’d have a huge impact. The fourth we can’t do anything about directly.
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You can add to that list that rape can be very confusing to the victims. A lot of women assume that if it is rape, they cannot experience arousal or climax. In fact, these are physiological responses and it is possible to experience both even if actively resisting. Many rape victims are both ashamed and doubt themselves because they feel their body has betrayed them. It's the equally destructive obverse of the male "she wanted it really". The majority of rape is by people known to the victim. Often a family member or someone the victim has agreed to go out with socially or on a date. Spousal rape is also one of the common forms of rape. The balaclava wearing alley-lurker stereotype is quite rare. So in all these cases, there are circumstances that lead the victim to question their own actions - did they bring it on themselves, was it expected that they should sleep with their victimiser, should they destroy the life of someone they know and is part of their own life? You'd be especially surprised how much impact the last one can have.

Rape is often an area of great uncertainty for the victim. You can be raped by somebody you find attractive. You can be raped by someone you were willing to sleep with but they didn't want to wait. There's the cliché of "it was rape at the start, but not at the end" which is so utterly damaging to someone's self-respect and confidence, if after resisting (physically, verbally, whatever) the victim gives up and submits. Which is not uncommon when someone is simply that much physically stronger than you or has some hold over you. At which point the victim, whose mental image of rape is a woman bravely fighting to the last, feels deeply ashamed of themselves. Especially as they likely think any experienced arousal is them being complicit in the encounter. Anyone who's ever had sex knows how nebulous the concept of choice can get. It can take weeks, sometimes years, to really process what happened to you. So it's not surprising that often victims don't come forward. And then you add on not wanting everyone to know what happened to them and many victims will just close up and try to put it behind them. Many people come forward only because they want to spare someone else from being a victim of the same person that raped them.


EDIT: You mention the trauma of the post-rape examination. It can be traumatic though it's basically a smear test with a free morning after pill. Plus photographs for bruises and collecting some samples from under the nails, etc. More upsetting for the exposure and feeling crap than the actual procedures. The people who carry them out are wonderful and very, very supportive however.
 
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Caracus2k said:
From the BBC source...


'Toxicology tests, taken almost nine hours after her last memory, showed Ms Hunt was at least two times over the drink drive limit, but came back negative for any signs of the date rape drug GHB.'

And again you can't disprove 100% that the woman didn't ingest knowingly or otherwise any other drug. A scientist can only say that a range of tests found no evidence for the previous ingestion of a given list of substances....

Again you seem to know nothing about evidence in law in the UK and (forensic) science.

Whoose 'going of on one again'? ....

Care to try again.....
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I find it curious that articles like this refer to her being "twice over the drink driving limit". She wasn't driving, so it's not relevant in that context. It's not a useful measure because it's hard to equate that with how much a person has actually drunk or how drunk they are.
 
Vonhelmet said:
I find it curious that articles like this refer to her being "twice over the drink driving limit". She wasn't driving, so it's not relevant in that context. It's not a useful measure because it's hard to equate that with how much a person has actually drunk or how drunk they are.
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Stop digging...

The drink drive limit is a commonly used reference point in the media when trying to quantify a person's level of intoxication.

The average female at twice the UK drink drive would be noticeablely intoxicated.

I note you don't make any acknowledgement of your incorrect assertion that I had myself assumed without good cause that she was intoxicated by alcohol when it was in plain sight in the opening post....
 
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Caracus2k said:
Stop digging...

The drink drive limit is a commonly used reference point in the media when trying to quantify a person's level of intoxication.

The average female at twice the UK drink drive would be noticeablely intoxicated.
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How intoxicated a person would be at that level of BAC varies from person to person.

And yes, it's a tangent, but it bothers me as it's not a terribly useful measure.

Caracus2k said:
I note you don't make any acknowledgement of your incorrect assertion that I had myself assumed without good cause that she was intoxicated by alcohol when it was in plain sight in the opening post....
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The articles refer to this twice the drink drive limit thing, which I don't think is very helpful. How many drinks does that constitute? How drunk is that? I doubt it's enough to black out and forget everything, as she says she did.
 
Vonhelmet said:
How intoxicated a person would be at that level of BAC varies from person to person.

And yes, it's a tangent, but it bothers me as it's not a terribly useful measure.



The articles refer to this twice the drink drive limit thing, which I don't think is very helpful. How many drinks does that constitute? How drunk is that? I doubt it's enough to black out and forget everything, as she says she did.
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'The UK legal limit for drivers is 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, often referred to as a BAC or blood-alcohol concentration. In US terms this would be expressed as 0.08%.'

A blood alcohol level of double that (0.16‰) would lead the average person to have

  • Impaired expression
  • Increases Boisterousness
  • Possibility of nausea and vomiting
  • Impaired reflexes
  • Impaired reaction time
  • Impaired gross motor control
  • Staggering
  • Slurred speech
But it's most likely worse for the woman in this case... Why? Because she's a woman (who can't on average deal with the same amount of alcohol as men without suffering greater effect) and because the figure from the toxicology report is back calculation and is a minimum figure.


What I don't get is why you feel the need to argue against the obvious likely conclusion of the evidence .....

The woman drank a lot of alcohol , this was likely self ingested in the absence of evidence to the contrary, and had a sexual encounter she regretted in retrospect.
 
Thing is if she does decide to go ahead anyway and there's still no solid evidence, so it gets thrown out. Can he then sue her for defamation and all his legal costs?
 
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Vonhelmet said:
You appear to think it inconceivable that a drunk woman could be raped.
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You can't seem to understand that being drunk doesn't mean a sexual encounter is rape and or sexual assault.

Again go research has the UK law system before making yourself look foolish....

I can't conclusively know that she wasn't raped (no one can apart from maybe the male involved) but I can be satisfied that the available evidence doesn't, even on the balance of probabilities, make it likely that a rape occurred (civil burden of proof in the UK) never mind prove the allegation beyond reasonable doubt (criminal burden of proof)

The police examined the surrounding circumstances and the evidence pointed to her not being some comatose drugged up victim but instead a drunk but consenting adult. She needs to take some responsibility and accept she is likely responsible for her own actions that day.

Idiots pandering to her as a victim at this point just reinforces the view that all too many rape allegation are spurious in nature
 
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OCuk has a really low opinion of women, doesn’t it? They’re all gold-diggers who cry rape after every consensual sexual encounter.
 
Tunney said:
Yes, a serious crime where 99% of perpetrators escape justice is shocking.

I have no idea what percentage of rapes have signs of violence, drugging or other evidence. I doubt that you do either. That doesn’t change that it’s shocking that so many people get away with it and are free to offend again.
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If you want to increase the conviction rate significantly, you have two choices:

1) Stack the system against the accused by presuming guilt and not allowing a fair trial.
2) Stack the system against the accusers so accusations are usually only made if there's a lot of evidence.

Which would you prefer?
 
Tunney said:
OCuk has a really low opinion of women, doesn’t it? They’re all gold-diggers who cry rape after every consensual sexual encounter.
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I have a very low opinion of anyone who gets drunk does something they regret and then tries to blame someone else for it.

The CPS are not some group of MRA's they looked at the evidence and made a sensible decision... The case stood no reasonable prospect of a conviction

Its a disgusting tactic in my mind to claim misogyny when rationally discussing a case like this.

It's not all about 'gold digging' there's a lot of social pressure on women (often from other women) not to be sexually promiscuous with random men. This is a logical outcome of the sexual dimophism of humans and the differing opportunity costs of sex for a man and a woman in nature. A woman may therefore prefer to beleive that she was drugged and raped rather than she got drunk and had casual sex.

I think it's vile and I can only hope you find yourself on the receiving end of the 'justice' that would result from the systems you think we should have to decide a persons guilt if such a system ever comes to be in the UK
 
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Tunney said:
OCuk has a really low opinion of women, doesn’t it? They’re all gold-diggers who cry rape after every consensual sexual encounter.
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Can you provide evidence to support your claims?

Or don't you care about petty things like evidence?
 
Vonhelmet said:
You appear to think it inconceivable that a drunk woman could be raped.
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It's not inconceivable. We'll see if there is any evidence to suggest it happened. The CPS didn't believe a conviction was possible. Some of the reasons why are known.

That is simply where we are today.
 
If the prosecution fails have all these "schmucks" agreed to pay potential costs and damages? How would it be shared out between them? What if some claimed to have no more money? Sounds a minefield...
 
Caracus2k said:
The CPS are not some group of MRA's they looked at the evidence and made a sensible decision... The case stood no reasonable prospect of a conviction
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The CPS has a budget. It has to draw a line somewhere. Private prosecutions do succeed, suggesting that cases that had a reasonable chance of succeeding were rejected by the CPS.

It's not all a out 'gold digging'
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No but every thread about marriage on OCuk ends up as a long rant about how all women are out to screw over men.
 
Tunney said:
The CPS has a budget. It has to draw a line somewhere. Private prosecutions do succeed, suggesting that cases that had a probably of succeeding were rejected by the CPS..
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You think the CPS didn't proceed with this case because 'they have a budget'?

Well you are in good company with Von when it comes to your intimate knowledge or lack thereof of the UK justice system....

The CPS are under considerable pressure to prosecute sexual offences even with scant evidence.

A case like this has to go before a jury and if you charge evey allegation of rape all that will happen is....

1) you will drastically increase the acquittal rate....

and even worse....

2) you will hurt the prospects of convictions being secured in the stronger cases as the general public will know the evidential test for a case is so low....


I can see you have thought long and hard about this.......
 
Mynight said:
Apparently GHB can't be detected in blood 6-8 hours after ingestion but can be in urine. I can understand why she believes the test to be flawed.

What a horrible situation for both of them.
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You've got about 6-8 hours to detect GHB in the urine, the problem with detecting GHB is that it is naturally in the body at significant concentrations as it's an important chemical for brain function. This gives a very narrow window of opportunity to detect elevated levels of it unlike non endogenous drugs like Rohypnol.
 
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