Geeklawyer had thought that feminism was a joke that after 25 years was confined to history and the odd nostalgic memory of decaying overweight women with sagging breasts and moustaches.
He was right (thanks abovethelaw).
Apparently a bunch of strapon wearing bull-dyke feminist law professors are asserting that lying to a woman in order to give her the pleasure of one’s Pork Sword is rape. American professors are a breed with less intellectual credentials than one would accept in the UK. Across the pond ‘Professor’ is merely a job title rather than, as it is here, a recognition of intellectual prowess.
No fuckin’ shit.
The lesbo’s here engage in the usual man hating ‘nod nod wink wink’ crap about all men conspiring to do down rape accusations and subjugate women. Geeklawyer finds this tosh amusingly retro but thinks that perhaps we should let the 1980’s have their political outrage back. Yes?
Geeklawyer awaits with some interest the House of Lords decision on Mrs A’s claim that she should recover damages from Iorworth Hoare who raped her in 1989 when she was 59. She didn’t sue at the time on the basis he wasn’t worth anything. Good advice at the time; but he in 2004 he won £7 million (is there anyone in jail who isn’t winning the lottery? It seems to be mainly convicts & chavs who win — and Geeklawyer really does know a few middle class people who pay the Dumb Tax).
In 2005 the Court of Appeal, quite properly, said to her that the limitation period of 6 years under the Limitation Act 1980 was thoroughly expired, it was bound by Stubbings v Webb [1993] AC 498, and also that the Human Rights Act 1998 was passed after the incident thusly not aiding in any helpful interpretation of the Act.
As the cliche goes ‘hard cases make bad law’. And this is about as hard as it gets. It always irritates Geeklawyer (not exactly fucking hard, that’s a given) when the press talk about ‘loopholes’ in the law but which are, in reality, carefully developed policy objectives: repeated news stories about squatters getting title to a property after 12 years is always a ‘loophole’ when it manifestly isn’t. Likewise, the 6 year limit is a limit for a good purpose. A defendant is entitled to raise a fair defence, which necessarily entails frail human memory and a documentary trail. In a less severe case where, say, D broke someones jaw when he was 19 and his victim 10 would it be ‘fair’ to say that when D came into £20k at the age of 85 C should be able to take a pop at him? Doubtful and a vague description of allowing a claim “where it is equitable to do so” as is in the legislation already is uncomfortably vague — there needs to be an end to litigation and also an end to it’s shadow.
Geeklawyer would be happy to see the HoL rule for Mrs A on this one but it might have a bad knock-on effect if not confined to its facts. Hopefully the Government will look at the Law Commission report on this topic.
Published on
12 March 2007 in
geeklawyer.
Tags: Austria, drafts, email, holiday, internet cafe, MinorJunior, mobile, modem, patent, phone, rape, roaming, SIM, ski, SMS, t-mobile, wi-fi.
A Californian prosecutor has been removed from prosecuting a rape case as the facts of her novel too closely mirror the facts of the case.
Joyce Dudley describes the heroine of her novel, a prosecutor named Jordon Danner, as having
“the poise and sexiness of a dancer, the brains of a scholar and the protective passion of a mother. She had always been attractive, but now having reached middle age experience, confidence and poise further enhanced her beauty.”
The hapless defendant, who is still awaiting trial complained that she should not be permitted to prosecute on the basis that having used the facts of his case as plotlines she has lost her impartiality.
The Californian Court of Appeal agreed saying that ” anyone who is stupid enough to turn their own case into a novel before the matter is concluded does not deserve the title “lawyer”. “She has a disabling conflict on interest”.
Ruthie thinks the defendant instead should have sued for distress and suffering caused by having to read such drivel.
Note the novel is “self-published”…
The conviction rate for rape allegations in the 12 months to March 2005 was a startling 5.3%. This compares to a rate of 33% in the 1980’s. What is going wrong?
Certainly more rapes are now being reported and the CPS is more likely to run trials. This may partly account for the aberration, since I fear that in the 1980’s often the only cases that ran were those which had a high chance of conviction.
Unfortunately rape is a crime which tends to rely on one persons word against another. There are rarely other witness. It is usually a crime committed by someone known to the victim.
Despite the sea changes in society’s attitudes to sexual behaviour it appears that juries go all Dickensian when scrutinising the behaviour of women in the sanitised environment of the jury room. The situation is not assisted when rules to prevent a victims sexual history being put before the court are often side-stepped. A burden of proof of beyond reasonable doubt and a typical sentence of 5 years imprisonment make a jury want to be very sure indeed. Difficult when you are weighing the account of one person against another in circumstances where one or both parties may have been uninhibited due to alcohol or drugs.
An alternative charge of so-called “date rape” has been suggested, where the defendant was reckless as to consent. This may make it easier for juries to convict, but creates a sub-category of rape which is perceived as less morally culpable. For many women (and men) however this notion is abhorrent. It also helps to perpetrate the idea that men are somehow incapable of controlling themselves and therefore should not be held responsible for their actions.
In the meantime assuming a significant number of rapes go unreported and even factoring in a percentage of false allegations Ruthie reckons that currently the chances of getting away with rape must be hovering around the 99% mark.
What a sad and terrifying thought.
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