This is a tricky one... (94)

If they did rape her they are now laughing all the way to the pub. This country and it's law makes a mockery of anyone who are victims.

Having stood in a court room as a victim (not of rape) i know what my experience of the justice system is.

If these guys did rape this woman, it wont be the rape that will effect her.

It will be the court case and it's aftermath that will get to her.

If she's strong she may just pull through if not it will affect every decision she makes in life, future relationships, family matters.

You blot out the event for most of the year but then on one day it rears it's ugly head.

But as it looks like there was'nt theright evidence we will never know what went on.

Edited 13 Jan 10, 1:12 AM by hollythedolly

I agree, the concept of adducing no evidence sucks, it never proceeded to trial as I class a trial, which would be decided by the jury on the basis of evidence - it never reached that point. So as I see it either the prosecutor on the day was really shit and wimped out, (and given the obvious publicity likely to follow, they would be stupid to do just that - doesn't mean they're not stupid though), or there was something significant between the logs and her witness evidence. If it were simply that extra information came to light, ie the logs, then I feel the prosecutor, with the consultation of the complainant, would have proceeded, at that stage, even if they failed to get a conviction at the end of it, based on the evidence. So without the missing details, I feel it is impossible to make a balanced judgement on the case.

I agree it sucks not to have proceeded to trial,and that it should never be the case that discussing some potential scenarios (whether on a par, similar or grossly dissimilar but what many on a jury may consider perverted) is wrong and somewhat outside the evidence in most cases. Whilst my instinct is probably to believe her, we should still adhere to the edict of innocent until proven guilty. In my mind a not guily verdict is just that, it sends us back to a point of innocent until proven guilty. The verdict itself however does not declare that having considered everything there is evidence of innocence (a subtle but important distinction). This is why there can now be a second trial for murder if additional evidence comes to light - because innocence has not been declared, it is just the status quo.

If anyone has access to the missing essential information, it sounds like quite a few people would like to view it and form a fuller opinion. Given its nature however, I suspect it will never be seen by the public at large, which given the outcome may well be in the interests of all of the parties (although without seeing it, I can't justifiably form that opinion!).

Edited 13 Jan 10, 1:25 AM by a_caelo

It's also odd that the prosecution offered no evidence. But they, sometimes the prosecution forget to turn the sound on when listening to a video, so I agree it's hard to know what this really means.

Sign the Consenting Adult Action Network's statement

Edited 13 Jan 10, 1:44 AM by emark

If she did endure a non-consensual ordeal that lasted "in the morning, afternoon and night" as the report put it, that is a horror I find hard to comprehend.

If however, she went along with the activities and then later regretted, 5 of those 6 men have already spent more than 6 months in jail (remanded in custody), and had their names and addresses made public, which is also a horror I find hard to comprehend.

It's quite sad to think that the case fell over because of discrepancies in her evidence. If one imagines her mental state when reporting this ordeal (if we assume for a moment that her story is the true one), it's easy to imagine her hiding the chatroom information. Can you imagine sitting there having to explain not only the dirty details of the physical acts you have just endured, but also admitting all your on-line fantasies? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. OK, maybe there was time enough afterwards for her to disclose those other details, but maybe no-one asked the question and maybe she didn't feel a need to disclose it. A lot of 'maybes'. All I'm saying is I can see how it could happen.

I've only had one experience of the CPS, regarding a burglary, and they are notoriously cowardly and conservative when it comes to pushing cases; in our case they refused to prosecute even though the thief had one of our items in his flat, and the fence had nine more items in his house. The 'excuses' they each made were sufficient to make the CPS fearful.

It's scary stuff.

I'm not writing it all again, but in essence emark has hit the nail on the head. To anyone with experience of the criminal justice system the issue here isn't kinky fantasies it is honesty and credibility.

The important point that has to be remembered is that rape prosecutions almost always rely virtually entirely on the victim's word. To prove a case beyond reasonable doubt there must be no doubt about the fact that they are telling the truth. I wouldn't say there is no bias against someone who is kinky, but certainly the police and lawyers are trained to avoid "myths and stereotypes", and would not react in this way just because they found out someone was into group sex. (How a jury might have reacted is a very different question - their prejudices are a greater problem than those of police and lawyers.) However if something comes to light that shows the victim has not told the truth about any important issue then it is impossible for there to be a conviction, because a case cannot be proved beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence of someone shown to be unreliable.

So while it may be very difficult to tell the truth, and understandable that victims sometimes don't, especially about their private life, it really is very important that they do so if they want a conviction to be possible. It seems pretty obvious here that what has come to light has seriously contradicted something the victim has said in her evidence and means it is no longer possible to treat her as a truthful witness.

From reading a bunch of different news sources the ways it comes across is:

She said: I went to this man's house who I met on the internet, I went inside and the five men raped me, but I'd only agreed to have sex with one of them.

They said: One of the men chatted with this woman on the internet, who wanted to have group sex, it was arranged, she came round to do it then didn't like it after the fact and put a rape complain into the police.

She denied anything to do with the group sex allegations, including any form of discussion about it, the defence produced evidence of discussion about it (though not a log of the conversation where she asked for it to happen), this totally discredited her, which meant they couldn't trust any other information that she presented to the court. Also in reply to the comment about what if she withdrew consent at some stage, the defence argument would have been that she “withdrew consent” after they had had sex with her, in effect she regretted her actions so decided that claiming rape had taken place would absolve her of her choice (A pretty standard defence from what I've heard). Once she had discredited herself, being the only witness the case was dead in the water.

It is unfortunate that some people “get away” with rape, but false allegations not only destroy the lives of the wrongly accused, but also harm the cases of women who were actually raped and so harm the changes of true victims getting justice.

(Edit to add) The court has to be able to find the case "beyond reasonable doubt", as she had damaged her credibility and reliability as a witness this would have been impossible. It's not to do with the fact that she talked about fantasies, it's the fact that she lied about talking about them first, which made her denial that she had agreed to the group sex also implausible.

Edited 13 Jan 10, 12:20 PM by Mattbucks

They may be laughing “all the way to the pub” however they may just be relieved that they haven't become another miscarriage of justice.

All your statements make the presumption that she was actually a victim, where as the court found that she wasn't and the men were acquitted. We've all read of the many cases where a woman cries rape after consenting on the night, but regretting it in the morning, and then goes on to do her best to destroy an innocent man's life. I would rather that a few guilty men walk free, than innocent men go to jail.

You said “But as it looks like there was'nt theright evidence we will never know what went on.” Well actually we know they were acquitted, found innocent. What is “the right evidence”, is that evidence that fits your presumption that they are guilty?

I'm sure that only they all will ever know what truly happened, as from what is in the media there wasn't any physical evidence, just “he said, she said”. But “she said”, can't, and never should be enough to send a man to jail for alleged rape.

Sorry if this has bindun;

It took me a few minutes to read the article, but no doubt the actual complexities of the case would have been far, far deeper than what has been printed.

Whatever the actual 'evidence' was (for all we know she may have typed out "I want you and your friends to 'rape' me." impling a role-play scenario) then it is a very worrying case, verdict, and will have equally worrying ramifications for future similar cases where an actual rape has been commited.

Also, there is a possibility that it was consensual and the 'victim' has decided for whatever reason to cry rape. It has happened before after-all.

There are so many possibilities of what may have happened during the incident, was it rape, was it completely consensual, but the real problem as far as I can see is that it means that any woman who has ever mentioned sex in a chat or email to any man can never, ever claim she has been raped. Worrying.

.....maybe I should think of something to write at the bottom of these posts......MY GOD! IT READS YOUR THOUGHTS!!!

I'm pretty sure that it's not just what the victim thinks.

Surely a conviction is based around what the perpetrator thinks, and whether that is reasonable.

(But... I don't know...)

There are obvious scenarios where a woman thinks she is non-consenting: but the man who penetrates her thinks she is.

Example: 'I have a hot bitch who is up for it. Read her messages to me: she wants strangers! She's going to say no and fight and struggle. She doesn't mean it: it's what she wants.'

As SB says: this maybe a woman who has endured a horrendous experience, or innocent men in prison for months awaiting trial.

it might be more simple. a woman who feels raped: and men who never intended to rape.

however...this particular situation suggests to me that she didn't expect to be gang banged. She got it. I get the feeling that the men concerned must have been fairly cavalier about what they did. Do you take the word of the guy who says 'she's up for it' or check in with the woman?

Maybe their six months in prison will mean that next time they ask.

No, it absolutely does not mean that. It means that any woman who has not been truthful about the whole background to an incident will find it very hard to make an allegation of rape stick.

The law has already got over the idea that prostitutes can't be raped, a few risqué chat messages or e-mails won't be a problem, as long as they don't contradict what she has said in evidence.

That is pretty much it - it is a case of whether the man reasonably believes that the victim is consenting.

There are certainly cases where the woman does not consent but the man believes she is consenting, for whatever reason, and sometimes that belief may be reasonable. An agreed rape roleplay scenario where no safeword has been put in place might be one of those, but much more common are cases where after normal flirting and foreplay a woman does not want sex but through fear says nothing or does nothing to communicate this, and the man carries on assuming everything is OK. That fear on the woman's behalf may be justified in some cases, but in others it is entirely in her own mind and not down to anything the particular man has done. Those are the really difficult cases, where both sides genuinely believe in their own case, the woman suffering all the trauma of being raped and the man the trauma of being accused while quite reasonably believing he has done nothing wrong. (These cases usually involve drink so the fact that the sex is crap and the woman's involvement is perfunctory is not necessarily the danger sign you might think it should be.)