Isn't part of the problem that she cant remember anything. She has to go off the CCTV evidence like everyone else. Her interpretation is that she looks drugged. The only person that knows for sure is the man and he isn't going to incriminate himself, if indeed there was a crime.
Crowd Funding a Prosecution for a serious offence?
- Thread starter balky12
- Start date
They have to draw the line somewhere. Just because the CPS decides not to prosecute doesn’t necessarily mean that the chance of a successful conviction is zero. Some private prosecutions succeed.
And you seem to have intimate knowledge of this case... from reading a few news reports?
.The CPS make their decisions on criminal allegations in two parts/tests....
The first is an evidential test where the CPS review the case to see if there is a realistic prospect of a conviction based on the evidence.
If a case passes the evidential test there is a public interest test. This is basically a way of weeding out cases where the CPS beleive an offence has been committed but don't think a prosecution is warranted in the circumstances. This would test would not stop a rape prosecution like that alleged by the woman proceeding if there was enough evidence to pass the evidential test.
We may not know all of the circumstances from the articles linked but unless for some strange reason they have omitted some 'smoking gun' information what I can say is that a jury would have more than enough reasonable doubt about the man's culpability to return a not guilty verdict.
I can't say that the women's definitely wasn't raped or that a private prosecution would definetly fail. But that's not how life works and that's not how the justice system does or should act. What I can safely say is that absent of some new key evidence that no one can be sure that she was raped and that for this reason a private prosecution is almost certain to fail.
For CPS not to have proceeded with a rape case there would have to have been a clear lack of evidence, so to go private she's basically hoping that the jury are your typical social media justice warriors who will believe anything they're told and hates men.
TBH from what I see with all of the recent social media witch hunts and now this there seems to be an ongoing effort to undermine the criminal justice system.
TBH from what I see with all of the recent social media witch hunts and now this there seems to be an ongoing effort to undermine the criminal justice system.
Undermine or point out that it's not fit for purpose? A fine line in places.
I was thinking the same.
I used to use GHB when it was legal, as I was having trouble sleeping. The first time I took it I couldn't walk. I had to crawl upstairs to bed. I was laughing my butt off as it was so funny. How Drunk I felt but my senses all worked still. Oh and I was incredibly horny. In my experience if I took enough to lose my senses then I defo wouldn't have been walking anywhere
How is it 'not fit for purpose'.
Prey expand as to how you suggest you can have a system that can determine the truth of a matter where it's two parties saying different things with no witnesses to the act itself?
People can and do make malicious and/ or mistaken claims at court. People often do have good reasons to lie or convince themsleves that they were raped rather than admit they had a sexual encounter that they should not have entered. Examples include but are certainly not limited to the missing teenager who is confronted by a parent about their actions on their return or who finds emergency contraception or the partner who returns home late, drunk and disheveled and is confronted by their partner who realises they have likely had sex whilst out.
The claim that no one would lie about being raped (or be mistaken) is demonstratably false. Strangely a lot of the same sort of people that want to turn sexual offences into a listen and beleive exercise are the sorts of people that suddenly become massive sceptics in other criminal allegations.....
With conviction and reporting rates as low as they are, the system clearly isn't working. I can't suggest an alternative, though.
It's not very democratic if you don't allow private prosecutions. Being beholden to the state for our justice.
Similarly, not allowing fundraising to cover the costs would also be undemocratic.
Don't see why anyone should have a problem with this
Similarly, not allowing fundraising to cover the costs would also be undemocratic.
Don't see why anyone should have a problem with this
Simply because there isn't one...... (that could reliably detect the truth)
When you look at the conviction rate for offences charged rather then from allegations made the conviction rate is rather higher then the figures usually trotted out with a conviction rate that's over 50‰ which suggests that the CPS are largely doing their job. Pilling on a load of weak cases will only reduce the overall conviction rate and I suggest taint the stronger cases as the perception will (correctly) be that rape offences can be charged on poor standards of evidence compared to other offences.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/vawg_report_2016/
Last edited:
I'm in two minds. The CPS are humans with limited resources. There will be cases that could lead to a conviction that slip through the cracks (I'm not saying that this is one of them). However, it does lead to a two-tier system where the rich have greater access to justice.
That's a bit of a strawman but conversely the "lock them up and throw away the key crowd" suddenly appear to have huge sympathies with those charged when it comes to rape cases.
In what percentage of cases is it proven that the supposed victim has lied about being raped? How does it compare to the general rate of false accusations when it comes to criminal cases?
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Feb 2010
- Posts
- 5,267
- Location
- North East England
Police have to investigate, CPS don't have to prosecute unless its a quiet day and your name is Mark Pearson.
I wasn’t discussing about rape, I was discussing whether we should have a private prosecutions system in this country in general.
Scotland is very different - there have been only a handful of private prosecutions there in the past century. It's a free for all in England & Wales, relatively speaking, although a defendant can ask the CPS to review the case and stop it.
It's not even necessarily a matter of cases slipping through the cracks (although that definitely happens).
A public or private prosecutor has to establish, at an absolute minimum, that the defendant has a case to answer. This essentially means that it is possible a court could convict the defendant after hearing the prosecution's evidence but before hearing the defence. The CPS actually applies a higher threshold than this when charging - a conviction has to be not only possible but more likely than not. This case might be sitting in the gap between 'A court would be prepared to hear it' and 'The CPS would be prepared to prosecute it'. It could end in a conviction and the CPS would still have made the right decision as far as it is concerned.
You'd struggle to justify private prosecutions if creating a justice system from scratch but there are enough safeguards against abuse that the problems caused by abolishing the right (which is relied upon by local councils, TV Licensing, the RSPCA and others, none of which have a statutory power to prosecute) is more trouble than it's worth.
It's hard to assess how many allegations are 'proven' false.
For much the same reasons that its hard to prove a rape happened its hard to prove that it did not happen.
There is considerable pressure not to prosecute even the most egregious examples of complainants being caught out as liars and or fantasists.
Studies have suggest that the rate of false allegations may be as high as 40‰
Even some feminist biased media sources cite a rate of 2-8‰ and then perform the mental
gymnastics of claiming false reporting to be 'extremely rare'.
I personally would welcome a comprehensive study of the reporting, investigation and outcomes of sexual offences in the UK but full expect that its scope and findings would have lots of opposition from the same pressure groups and individuals arguing against prosecuting basically any malicious rape complainants
Last edited:
Yes, because as said it is dangerous if the only person who can prosecute is a government body.