False Rape Accusations... A new law needed?

Too many times lately we're seeing the lack of evidence required in order to ruin a persons life if someone accuses them of rape... And it needs to be taken more seriously. It's as bad as the witchcraft stuff you learn about in school, where if you're accused, that's the end of it. Are we seriously moving backwards??

No idea how to do this stuff, but someone tell me how to start a poll in this thread.

If anyone knows of a petition on introducing a law on it, please let me know!

Discuss though, want to see if everyone else is in agreement.

EDIT: Just found THREE petitions about it, all rejected because "It's not clear what you're asking us to do" from the Government. What?!?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

Alexion

17

It's terrible :cry2:

a misunderstanding or even a downright lie can spell the end of someone's free life...

Reply 2

ComputerMaths97

OP

17

Original post by Alexion

It's terrible :cry2:

a misunderstanding or even a downright lie can spell the end of someone's free life...

And it seems to require much less evidence than most legal claims, which doesn't seem right to me.

Reply 3

oShahpo

20

The only thing we can do is to change the way we look at those accused of rape and not to judge anyone until everything's proven or at least shown to be somewhat consistent with the evidence at hand.

Life in prison.

Thing is that with someone being accused of rape I always see loads of people like "DISGUSTING MONGREL" before its proven, yet with murder I have heard a lot more say "we haven't seen the entire thing yet", with all crimes there is that lot of people that just immediately jump on the hate train before anything has been proven but there are a lot more when it comes to accusations of rape.

Reply 6

Alexion

17

Original post by ComputerMaths97

And it seems to require much less evidence than most legal claims, which doesn't seem right to me.

Yeah, the problem is that it all-too-often just comes down to the jury's verdict. So it's basically a who-do-we believe situation, which scarily often goes in favour of the 'victim' regardless of the accused's guilt...

You hear stories of people who throw rape accusations at people just to get themselves out of a sticky situation - probably shouldn't disclose this, but I know someone who was in the jury of a trial where it turned out a girl had cheated on her boyfriend, initiated the sexual encounter, and then thrown a rape accusation at the person she cheated with because she wanted to get back with her boyfriend afterwards.

They so nearly voted guilty, it's scary.

Luckily she broke down and told the truth before their second verdict, and the charges were dropped...

Reply 7

Alexion

17

Original post by Vikingninja

Thing is that with someone being accused of rape I always see loads of people like "DISGUSTING MONGREL" before its proven, yet with murder I have heard a lot more say "we haven't seen the entire thing yet", with all crimes there is that lot of people that just immediately jump on the hate train before anything has been proven but there are a lot more when it comes to accusations of rape.

I know. There've been a couple of rape threads where I've tried to argue the point that there's a chance there might be a different side to the story than the one people believe, but I'm always faced with comments like "why would you be defending a rapist?!" and "you're sick if you don't believe the victim. They're clearly traumatised and that guy should be jailed for life" when all they have to go on is very, very few words.

Reply 8

Vikingninja

21

Original post by Alexion

I know. There've been a couple of rape threads where I've tried to argue the point that there's a chance there might be a different side to the story than the one people believe, but I'm always faced with comments like "why would you be defending a rapist?!" and "you're sick if you don't believe the victim. They're clearly traumatised and that guy should be jailed for life" when all they have to go on is very, very few words.

Yeah that's the thing as soon as there's some accusation gone out so many assume that its actually true. I'm more referring that someone blamed them on rape and nothing like it even happened but people jump on the... **** it gonna call it the t*** train and immediately assume that it actually happened.

Literally make a load of real looking evidence in texts (lol) and then accuse the person and their life is ****.

Reply 9

Diabolus

1

Original post by ComputerMaths97

Too many times lately we're seeing the lack of evidence required in order to ruin a persons life if someone accuses them of rape... And it needs to be taken more seriously. It's as bad as the witchcraft stuff you learn about in school, where if you're accused, that's the end of it. Are we seriously moving backwards??

No idea how to do this stuff, but someone tell me how to start a poll in this thread.

If anyone knows of a petition on introducing a law on it, please let me know!

Discuss though, want to see if everyone else is in agreement.

EDIT: Just found THREE petitions about it, all rejected because "It's not clear what you're asking us to do" from the Government. What?!?

Definitely. Being falsely accused of rape can be incredibly damanging to a person's life, even potentially more than rape, because it can result in someone being imprisoned for something they didnt do.

We need to stop anyone that thinks its ok to ruin someone's life for something they didnt do. It is a complete perversion of justice.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 10

draculaura

16

I think women who make false rape accusations are disgusting. If a woman is caught to make false accusations - they deserve the same amount of time their "attacker" was going to get. And yes, there should definitely be more testing around it. I heard if you're accused, but not found guilty of something like rape, it's still added to your record. :nn:

Reply 11

theDanIdentity

16

if woman is found guilty of false rape; she should get the same punishment.

also, banish the whole anonymity deal for accusers. either nobody gets anonymity until the court case; or everybody does. it is too costly and damaging for one party to be broadcasted over the news for a 'crime' he hasn't yet been actually convicted of.

Reply 12

Alexion

17

There're so many stories on here (http://accused.me.uk/) about the effects that it has. It could be argued that falling victim to a false rape accusation is worse than being a rape victim...

Reply 13

the bear

20

Original post by ComputerMaths97

Too many times lately we're seeing the lack of evidence required in order to ruin a persons life if someone accuses them of rape... And it needs to be taken more seriously. It's as bad as the witchcraft stuff you learn about in school, where if you're accused, that's the end of it. Are we seriously moving backwards??

No idea how to do this stuff, but someone tell me how to start a poll in this thread.

If anyone knows of a petition on introducing a law on it, please let me know!

Discuss though, want to see if everyone else is in agreement.

EDIT: Just found THREE petitions about it, all rejected because "It's not clear what you're asking us to do" from the Government. What?!?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9894588/Compulsive-liar-jailed-after-11-false-rape-claims-in-decade.html

Reply 14

TorpidPhil

19

Original post by Alexion

There're so many stories on here (http://accused.me.uk/) about the effects that it has. It could be argued that falling victim to a false rape accusation is worse than being a rape victim...

Both are horrible experiences except in one at least you know that everybody else sees you as a victim and wants to molly-coddle you. Whereas in the other you are heinous scum.

Reply 15

llys

17

Original post by TorpidPhil

Both are horrible experiences except in one at least you know that everybody else sees you as a victim and wants to molly-coddle you. Whereas in the other you are heinous scum.

You are joking, right? At least half the population will think that you are a liar, trying to ruin a man's life, and that you should be sent to prison for making false allegations. Similarly, some people will think an alleged rapist is "heinous scum" and many others will think he is a poor innocent victim of scheming scorned women who are also compulsive liars.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 16

llys

17

Clearly, in most rape cases one person is lying. To think that men are lying is just as valid or invalid as to think that women are lying. One is not worse, or more "enlightened", than the other. If you want to be rare and fair, then you have to stick to "innocent until proven guilty" and apply it to both parties. Some people on here are always keen to apply it to the alleged rapist, forgetting that it applies to the alleged rape victim too. He's innocent until proven guilty of being a rapist, and she's innocent until proven guilty of being a false accuser. The problem is that the nature of evidence "beyond reasonable doubt" means that sometimes, neither of them will be found guilty, but it is usually impossible for both to be truly innocent, so then it comes down to who you personally think gains more from lying (and so on).

The only practical solution is to give everyone anonymity until conviction. That will at least clear up most of these tedious threads.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 17

harry734

10

Rape victims are already scared of coming forward as they are embarrassed and are traumatised after suffering an attack as horrendous as rape must be, adding a law like this would make victims even less likely to come forward for fear of being accused of lying and then being prosecuted themselves. Once again an absolutely ridiculous, ill informed discussion on the student room.

Reply 18

harry734

10

Original post by Alexion

There're so many stories on here (http://accused.me.uk/) about the effects that it has. It could be argued that falling victim to a false rape accusation is worse than being a rape victim...

So you would prefer to be violently ****ed up the arse than to have someone say you raped someone? don't be ridiculous.