I am hosting a webinar on women and justice. It ties in with the CPS consultation on the prosecution of rape offences.
Do you think that the legal system has failed women?
Join me as I chair a webinar featuring:
- former Chair of the Bar Council Amanda Pinto QC
- barrister and part-time Crown Court Recorder Maryam Syed and
- Elaine Storkey, author of ‘Scars Against Humanity’, a book about violence against women and girls.
Baroness Lorely Burt will be introducing the session and psychologist Dr Jermaine Revalier will be co-chairing.
The timing of the webinar coincides with the deadline for comments on the CPS Consultation on its legal guidance on rape. This guidance provides support to prosecutors in making effective and compliant decisions in Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) cases, helping to ensure the delivery of justice.
The updated legal guidance reflects the changing world and our improved understanding of the many complex issues related to rape.
One of the key areas of content surrounds reasonable lines of enquiry and disclosure which aims to assist prosecutors with striking the appropriate balance between the needs of an investigation and the right to privacy. As the Head of a barristers’ chambers, this is something that I come across on on a regular basis.
If you are interested in exploring issues surrounding the prosecution of RASSO cases, or any other matter impacting women and justice, then send your questions in to: [email protected]
And join my guests and me next Thursday 14th January at 7pm-8:30pm.
This webinar is part of a programme my team and I are running called ‘Share, Plan, Act.’ Through it, we link community/faith/charity groups and key influencers to catalyse positive social change via the media, lobbying, education and micro action on issues of equality.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/consultation/consultation-rape-and-sexual-offences-legal-guidance
* Isabelle Parasram is the Vice President of the Liberal Democrats.
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11 Comments
The issue is important.
As an adviser in a field unrelated, but working as I did with economically vulnerable, unemployed people, trying to set up as self employed, confidences and personal circumstances were shared.
I had several female clients who confided in me and whose circumstances were very sensitive.
It is as a result of this experience that I have even stronger views on the subject.
Evidence needs to be very thorough, innocence presumed, until that evidence is available. All personal data, on both sides should be available, no hidden e mails, texts, or such. Then accused ought not be named before charge.
Then when or if found guilty, the process has been so transparently fair, the one thing often missed can happen.
Sentences can be longer and punishment strong. It is outrageous that brutal crimes, severe levels of injury be given sentences of a few years.
The legal system has a duty of fairness to everyone regardless of gender. Courts should prioritise getting to the truth of the matter rather than making prior assumptions.
No-one wants to see rapists go unpunished but equally no-one wants to see false accusations put innocent persons in jail. There has always been a presumption of innocence in the British legal system. In criminal law, Blackstone’s ratio is the idea that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
We’ve moved a long way from that in recent years. The CPS can appeal against guilty verdicts to have another go if they think the jury have it wrong.
https://metro.co.uk/2017/06/29/woman-who-made-false-rape-claims-storms-out-of-court-during-trial-6743935/
I think we should be arguing for Sexual Crimes & those where the Victims are Children to be temporarily remove from Juries & placed in the hands of Panels of Judges & Experts.
The simple Fact is that far too many Jurors dont believe the testimony of Women or Children. Victims should not have to wait for the Public to catch up with Reality.
A very important issue and one which probably deserves more consideration than it gets. The rate of conviction for rape cases is low and it is certain that guilty people walk free, but that is not really surprising. Most sexual assault occurs in situations where there is no corroberating third party evidence and it comes down to one persons word against another. The jury is often being asked to guess who they believe with little to go on except gut instinct. The level of conviction may be low but we have always believed that it is better 10 guilty men walk free than one innocent person is convicted (Blackstone’s ra tio).
The level of proof required for a criminal conviction is high, as it should be, for a man convicted of rape faces not only a lengthy jail sentence but complete reputational annihilation.
I agree with Lorenzo that all personal data for BOTH parties must be disclosed, including material that appertains to the character of those involved. The jury need all the help they can get. I am uneasy at Paul’s suggestion that juries should be replaced by expert panels in such cases. The idea that we are judged by our peers is fundamental to our legal system and although there are precedents (N. Ireland during the troubles) we should be very wary about changing the system just to make sure that we get the results we think we want. Process matters.
I just noticed I should have previously said ” The CPS can appeal against NOT guilty verdicts to have another go if they think the jury have it wrong.” So it is no longer the case that an acquittal in a murder case means the defendant is to be forever considered innocent. It simply means the CPS and the police needs to manufacture enough new evidence to have another try.
This has largely been brought about by the Progressive Left who weren’t happy that a jury acquitted the defendants in the Stephen Laurence case. Probably/possibly (I don’t know enough about the evidence to have a definite opinion) they shouldn’t have, but if we are to accept Blackstone’s advice we need to accept that more mistakes will be made in not convicting the guilty than in not acquitting the innocent.
Alternatively we make it clear we don’t accept Blackstone’s advice and say we want it to be the other way around. We’d rather have ten innocent persons convicted than one guilty person go free,
Paul Barker, will the Panels of Judges and Experts have performance targets? Will they be required to convict a certain number of people? If they don’t meet those targets will they lose their jobs? What would happen if they acquitted too many defendants?
“It simply means the CPS and the police needs to manufacture enough new evidence to have another try.”
“This has largely been brought about by the Progressive Left who weren’t happy that a jury acquitted the defendants in the Stephen Laurence case. ”
We’ll leave the ad-hominen to one side for a moment and pause briefly to note that Home Secretary who introduced the 2003 Criminal Justice Act was David Blunkett who wasn’t part of the Progressive anything.
The Stephen Lawrence killers were acquitted at a private prosection after the CPS decided it didn’t have enough evidence to sustain a prosecution. So you could fairly say that they had not already had ‘a try’
In fact the reversal of the double jeopardy rule was largely driven by the case of Julie Hogg whose murderer (after an acquittal) confessed to her murder to a prison officer. I think – but I would struggle to source it – that it was said at the time of the passage of the 2003 Act that it wouldn’t allow a retrial for the Stephen Lawrence case. The retrial was based on later forensic evidence coming to light using techniques that weren’t available at the time.
But it perhaps better feeds someone’s narrative to say that it was the ‘Progressive Left’ acting in the Stephen Lawrence cause celebre than a case involving a white woman.
On the issue of false rape allegations. This is a bit dated but there is a home office report from 2005
Which looked at 216 cases that could be classed as false rape allegations – in 5 of them did police notes refer to a deliberate untruth, 6 files were submitted to the CPS, 2 cases were charged, none resulted in convictions. It really is staggeringly rare.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100408125722/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf
@Paul Barker
“The simple Fact is that far too many Jurors dont believe the testimony of Women or Children. ”
Are there facts to back that up. If you go back a few years when more rape cases were brought to court the conviction rates *when the case was put to the jury* were broadly comparable with other serious offences (slightly lower but not significantly so). That may be a function of conservative charging practices (more so now of course).
With regard to child sex offences I thought that was even more the case (any statistics may have been skewed by recent Operation Yewtree type historic cases). Anecdotally judges have told me juries did seem more likely to be persuaded of convictions where children were defendants. That’s not totally unsurprising of course as those cases won’t involve potentially difficult to prove questions of consent.
@Peter Martin
I think the jury were directed to acquit by the Judge after he ruled that some identification evidence wasn’t admissible. The Prosecution effectively had to then withdraw their case. So it’s not the case that “Probably/possibly….they shouldn’t have,”. It simply wasn’t an option open to them.
Also Stephen Lawrence is spelt with a W
Whilst the number of reported rapes charged by the CPS has decreased in recent years – and is a concern, the figure of just over 1.7% reported rapes ending in a conviction that is repeatedly bandied about is deeply misleading. Roughly half of all reported rapes last year were later withdrawn by the complainant. Many of those will have been genuine complaints, but the simple fact is that it is nigh on impossible for the police to proceed with a prosecution when the key witness decides not to cooperate. That figure also doesn’t take into account such historic allegations where the accused either cannot be identified or has died. So the actual figure is really more than 50%, which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Rape needs to be taken seriously and support needs to be provided to victims at all stages. But, the basic right to a fair trial should not become collateral damage in pursuit of that. I hope the party will bear that in mind.
And I hope we also commit ourselves to reversing the hugely damaging cuts to legal aid we helped introduce whilst part of the coalition, as well being much bolder on what a liberal justice system would look like. The Tories are as populist and vindictive as they’ve ever been, and I suspect Labour will soon revert to the Blair era ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric in an effort to win votes. It’s a hard sell, but we need to be brave enough to try.
@Alexander. Your point that 1.7% rape cases leading to conviction is a misleading figure is well explained. It should remind us all how statistics are abused by liberals as well as extreme conservatives. I agree with your whole comment about campaigning on crime issues; we must stress we believe in effective ways of dealing with crime, in which punishment plays a vital part but cannot on its own solve crime. As you say, legal aid plays a part, but I would add that other means of support are needed for the victims (to overcome the hurt, which may be true of the falsely accused also), the accused (who may have misbehaved in certain ways even if not committed the crime) and the convicted (who we will not wish to commit the crime again). This gets distorted when people in our party make it appear to be just about women, even though it may be true that they suffer rather more than men. Another factor is the excessive individualism and lack of community in our society, which means a restoration of local public services of all kinds is needed.