109 women prosecuted for false rape claims in five years, say campaigners

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The CPS - Crown Prosecution Service - in the UK, explicitly state that prosecutions should not go ahead without evidence, and it is that which WAR is taking issue with.

Despite this, people have been prosecuted and found guilty without evidence - while still maintaining their innocence - the CPS has even had to investigate this.

It is no evidence that is the problem.

WARs position, as stated again here in their document, is for prosecutions with evidence, to go ahead:

Sorry but can you show me one UK case where someone was prosecuted and convicted without evidence?

I'm not talking about 'WAR don't think the evidence was strong enough'. I'm not talking about 'there was vulnerability or extenuating circumstance that wasn't given adequate weight in WARs opinion' . I'm not talking about 'we think new evidence or flaws have cone to light since in WARs view'. Can you show me one case where a woman (or man) has been convicted if making a false rape accusation by a jury of their peers on the basis of a prosecution case that offered no evidence.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The woman pictured in the OP article, is a case where there was no evidence, yet prosecution was going ahead:
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/nov/07/eleanor-de-freitas-rape-suicide-alive-cps-prosecute-father

Here is the case of a conviction:

http://www.webcitation.org/6ItPWbBjp

That document is from the Crown Prosecution Service itself, and has a lot of content on why this topic has so much complexity and gray areas.

Defreitas was never convicted. So far we have no idea of the standard of evidence against her. The claims from those in her corner seem to cover a) we don't think there was any evidence - which is somewhat different from there was no evidence and b)she was bipolar and hence vulnerable. A) is something for a jury to consider (strength of the prosecution case, reasonable doubt), b) is largely irrelevant to whether or not she did commit the crime, it only goes to possible mitigating factors, as it would in any criminal case.

In your second example the evidence was an admission of guilt! You can't really present something more concrete to a jury! More pertinently you'll note that the DPP as a result instigated changes that required all consideration of charges for this tyoe crime to be reviewed by that office (page 5). If you review the details if the case (page 8) its pretty clear that there was indeed a lie, the only question here is whether this is in the narrow band if cases where it may not he in the public interest to prosecute in spite if an obvious offence having occurred.

Neither supports your assertion of convictions without evidence.



Tbh I find it a little uncomfortable how easily that report talks about what would essentially be special treatment for one narrow class of criminal. It includes comments such as 'young and vulnerable' and 'victims of some sort of offence, even if not the he one he or she had reported'. That doesn't make it all right I'm afraid- if vulnerability was a shield against prosecution then a very wide number of criminals could plead guilty and walk free. If youth was a defence then men's prisons would largely empty overnight.

It is telling though that the report was authored by one Alison levitt QC. You've been fond recently of justifying an ad hominem on the basis of everyone should be judged on their wider record. His comfortable are you then with linkage to the QC who was responsible for the farce that was the Michael le Vell case?

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Ok so i have just been driving from the airport to the city center and on the radio comes this report about how 109 women in the UK have been convicted for false rape claims. Nothing new there says you sure it obviously happens a lot right?

False accusation convictions represent less than 1% of actual false allegations.

The woman from this WAR group was basically saying that because the cases of false allegations are so low (2%) the women shouldn't be charged, When pressed she went further and literally said that because the acquittal rape for men is so high it's ok for some men to have their lives ruined by these false allegations because so many women have their lives ruined by rape

These are the same people who argue that women's prisons should be abolished and women should never be sent to prison because women only commit crime because of the pressure on them by men and by a society that men are to blame for.

And look at the present criminal system. Look at how many women kill their children and husbands and don't go to jail. Female privilege is enormous and getting bigger.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

In my second example, her pleading guilty was not evidence of her making a false rape claim - read it more carefully.

She was prosecuted for making a false rape claim - prosecution that began when there was no evidence that it was false, solely because she retracted her rape claim - and then, even though the rape claim was true, she was convicted for retracting it (that is what she pled guilty to).


An ad-hominem is justified/non-fallacious when used for casting doubt on the credibility of a source or link - not for attacking the actual arguments made within a source/link.

So work away, if you think a document from the official Crown Prosecution Service in the UK lacks credibility, try to convince people of that. You don't contest anything the document says about 'Ms A's case though, so it doesn't really affect my argument at all.

I read it very closely thank you-she pleaded guilty. What the hell did you think the courts outcome would be: "are you sure dear. Would you like to go away, have a nice cuppa with a helpful WAR advocate and reconsider?"

She was prosecuted for a double retraction. Basically she lied she hasn't been raped when she in reality still claims to have been (having previously being accused of lying she had been raped: this BTW (from page 8 point 2) was on the basis she admitted to lying in her statement-no evidence for the first prosecution my ass) There's not. a lot if detail to work out the why and assess if there was public interest in pursuing a prosecution. In some cases you wouldn't in some cases you would - if her lying was to protect a dangerous criminal who later raped someone else then there has to be a degelree of culpability. Notwithstanding that a guilty plea in a court case is probably the most damning demonstration of guilt you can get. Unless you're incapable if telling the truth you have conceded your own guilt to a court of law. If you really want to disallow guilty pleas in court we really have entered the twilight zone


And you still haven't provided an example





On the ad hominem, I think it only fair to borrow from your phrase book on other topics- while any arguement should be heard, the credibility of the person making the arguement is clearly affected by their wider stance : that's pretty much your position right?

tritium wrote: »

If you really want to disallow guilty pleas in court we really have entered the twilight zone

What you describe here is how this faction of feminism is trying to manipulate the system and succeeding to a huge extent.

When a woman pleads guilty, she is only doing so to avoid the punitive and cruel abuse of her womanhood by subjecting her to questioning and demanding actual evidence. She is really a victim and the process is subjecting her to inhuman sexist abuse.

When a man pleads guilty he is a fowl, evil and disgusting criminal that needs to be locked up for the rest of his life without trial solely on the word of the accuser.