Rape Hysteria’s legal proceedings questioned by Spiked Online

This is more absurd then claiming every killing is murder, abolishing self defense, accidental death, conflating all as "murder".

A new report on rape and the criminal justice system in England and Wales has concluded that the debate around rape has been too much focused on conviction rates. Yet while Baroness Stern, author of the report, recommends that from now on support and care for victims be given as high a priority as the prosecution and conviction of perpetrators, her report is unlikely to change the terms of the debate.

The Stern report does not challenge the way in which women today are encouraged to see themselves as victims and how they are regarded as less accountable for their actions than men. And in suggesting that women reporting rape should be believed from the outset, Stern is insisting that, when it comes to alleged crimes of rape, the accused is guilty until proven innocent.

Feminists and rape awareness campaigners have been dismayed at Stern’s suggestion that attention be diverted away from the often-repeated claim that only six per cent of rapes lead to a conviction. This refers to the total number of reports producing convictions, but Stern says it is misleading as nearly 60 per cent of those charged with rape are, in fact, convicted. […]

Feminists and PC create "truth" by repeating misleading and outright false statements and silencing truth. This happens with domestic violence, false rape statistics, race and iq cover ups and blank slate lies.

Since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 came into force, the definition of rape has been expanded to include oral sex. But there has also been a profound attitude shift with roots in the second-wave feminist idea that heterosexual sex is an inherently violent and degrading act that women subject themselves to against their better judgement.

More than four out of five rape allegations are made against friends or acquaintances. As alcohol and/or drugs were involved in over half those cases, Cavendish puts this down to ‘the culture of binge drinking’. But this avoids the more complex picture. Today, various rape-awareness activists and state feminists are themselves helping to blur the boundaries between sex and rape, encouraging women to regard themselves as violated, abused and traumatised for having gone to bed with a man without thinking it through in minute detail.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 declared that consent must be ‘active, not passive’; in rape cases, consent is now taken to mean agreement rather than the absence of a refusal. So if a woman goes along with sex, but doesn’t make it explicitly clear that she is actively consenting to it, it can be deemed to be rape. The government has even moved towards ensuring that no agreement can be taken as consent if it is given under the influence of alcohol. As Cavendish pointed out: ‘In our zeal to protect women, are we going to legislate so that a drunken man is accountable for his deeds, but a drunken woman is not? Why do we encourage women to see themselves as victims?’ Absolving women who engage in sexual liaisons – whether drunk or sober – of responsibility for their actions is not liberating; it’s demeaning.

There is no doubt that forcing someone to have sex is a heinous, violent and degrading act and victims of rape should indeed be treated with dignity and respect. But in the name of protecting women, the government is insisting that rape cases be treated differently from all other crimes, while interfering with the course of justice in a way that undermines defendants’ rights and undercuts the power of juries.

Roache verdict: why jury trials are indispensable

10 February 2014

The criminal trial of the Coronation Street star, as opposed to the media trial of Woody Allen, showed the value of being tried before a jury.

Perhaps the CPS should now consider whether it is a good idea to abandon considerations of complainant credibility, especially in cases like Roache’s, where credibility is so fundamental to the allegation.

Student censors, your time is up

12 May 2014

Campus censorship makes a mockery of student politics. Time to shake it off.

This is an edited version of a speech given at King’s College London as part of spiked’s ‘Down With Campus Censorship!’ campaign.

Today, it’s easy to be dismissive of it all, as the bans have become more and more banal and their justifications more and more flimsy. Recently, we’ve seen the University of Derby’s student union attempt to ban the entirety of UKIP on the grounds that the burble of the notoriously gaffe-prone party poses a threat to student safety. Meanwhile, the University of Cardiff’s student union keeps trying to pass a motion that would effectively outlaw ‘pro-life’ societies and demonstrations on campus.

Last year – which was dubbed ‘the year of the ban’ by the Tab – the state of affairs went from the troubling to the vaguely ridiculous, as near-enough 30 universities banned Robin Thicke’s pop smash ‘Blurred Lines’, as well as tabloid newspapers, such as the Sun and the Daily Star, as part of the national No More Page 3 campaign. These bans were argued for under the bizarre notion that they were underpinning a culture of misogyny, even sexual violence, on campus.

It’s a strange state of affairs: where once student unions wanted to protect students from the racist invective of Nick Griffin, now they want to protect you from the come-hither warblings of Mr. Thicke

• Yes means No! Forcibly raping a 17 year old is the same rape as consensual love making.
• "Rape is rape is rape" is a lie, Joe Biden! 20 different types of rape!
• Republicans re-re-define rape: to the original definition rape had for 2000 years before re-definition 30 years ago
• Consent, rape & minors. What is consent to sex?