DOES ACQUIT MEAN NOT GUILTY SKIN
Not all rapes result in the sort of forensic evidence – such as bruising, or skin underneath the fingernails – that can indicate a lack of consent. Often, there will be no witnesses, and the fact that sexual intercourse took place is not in question so the question is over whether consent was given, and the only eyewitness accounts will come from the accuser and the accused. This high evidentiary bar can make rape more difficult to prosecute than other crimes. It certainly doesn’t follow that the plaintiff was lying.
That doesn’t mean that a crime wasn’t committed. But our system means some of those who are probably guilty end up, rightly, walking free, and innocent in the eyes of the law. In my view, it was absolutely the right outcome. I was once a member of a jury that didn’t convict someone who I thought was probably guilty of the crime of which they were charged – but not “beyond reasonable doubt”. There is nothing like jury service to remind you of the imperfections of our justice system. It’s why we impose a high evidentiary bar before someone can be convicted of a crime, asking juries to apply a “beyond reasonable doubt” test. It’s why we don’t take everyone accusing someone else of a crime at their word. But our whole justice system is geared around the possibility of false allegations. Of course, one false allegation is, like any crime, one too many. Many rapes are reported that don’t meet the evidential bar for prosecution. A significant number of these cases involved young, often vulnerable people – some with mental health issues. If anything, they make up a tiny proportion of reported rape cases: a landmark study by the CPS found that in a 17-month period, while there were just under 6,000 prosecutions for rape, there were only 35 for making false allegations of rape. But there is no evidence to suggest that they are higher for rape than for any other crime, despite the damaging perceptions to the contrary. That’s not to say there are no false and malicious allegations. Neither did it explore why conviction and prosecution rates for domestic violence offences are declining, which was also highlighted in the CPS report. None of these issues surfaced in the interview.
He chose to focus a good chunk of the interview on the issue of false allegations, which leaves the utterly misleading impression that this is the main issue in the prosecution of rape, rather than levels of under-reporting (although reporting of rape has increased in recent years, only around 15% of sexual violence is reported to the police) or the lack of specialist support for women coming forward to report rape or the way that some women reporting rape have been met with active disbelief by the police.
Humphrys was interviewing Saunders about the Crown Prosecution Service’s annual crime report on violence against women and girls.
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