From my blog: tenderhooligan.wordpress.com.
If you haven’t read this piece already, you should now: Gang-rape woman arrested during trial, following overdose.
The linked piece concerns a woman who was gang-raped by three men and who had to stand in front of them in court and identify them. She was later arrested for not turning up to court again. Unsurprisingly, she self-harmed because she couldn’t cope with what was happening to her. The three accused men have since been acquitted. After the victim’s arrest, Mr Justice Carney said: ‘If she has to spend a long time in prison herself waiting for a re-trial that’s her fault.’ Yes, really. A spokesperson for the Rape Crises Centre (Ellen O’Malley) criticised the trial process, ‘As making the complainants “feel they are the ones on trial and not the accused”.’ O’Malley went on to say, ‘This system in our opinion is very imbalanced and needs radical reform. As a result Ireland has one of the highest attrition rates for rape and sexual assault cases in Europe.’
But it’s not on its own. The clear up rates for rape and sexual assault cases in England and Wales are equally low. The attrition to which O’Malley refers starts right after the attack takes place when women are too frightened to report it, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone. If they do report it, it may not be recorded and pursued by the police as a offence that can be tried. And that’s before anything even. reaches a courthouse where the horrific tales of victim-blaming, brutal cross-examination, and even threats from the crowd and blatant intimidation, are numerous. O’Malley is right when she says that rape victims too often feel that they are the people on trial. Clear-up rates for rape cases in England and Wales hover around the 5% mark. That means that there is only a 5% chance of a rapist being convicted for his crime.
Anyone who has been on the feminist blogosphere this week has heard about uniLad. This is a site that is run by male students (“affectionately” known as “LADs”) and seems to be something of a “tip” site for getting laid. Except it’s not. Observe this little beauty:
‘If the girl you’ve taken for a drink… won’t “spread for your head”, think about this mathematical statistic: 85% of rape cases go unreported. That seems to be fairly good odds.’
Read more (link to source).

