THE LAST DITCH

Sex
with drunken women could be rape, review to signal – Telegraph
.

Harriet Harman is an enormous threat to liberty and justice. She has
commissioned a study into how to "improve" the conviction rate for rape.
Rape is by its nature a difficult crime to prosecute. It is often not
witnessed. I am sure many rapists go unpunished, either because women do
not report the offence or because there is insufficient corroboration.
That's sad, but the cries to lower the standard of proof for rape are no
solution. A conviction rate is not "improved" by convicting the
innocent. Just as dangerous is the wheeze thrown up by the report Harman
commissioned.

I agree completely with the report's author, Baroness Stern, when she
said (of men who commit rape when drunk):
 

"…Being drunk is voluntary and people
who become drunk are responsible for their actions. It is not the
alcohol that commits the rape… It is not an excuse. It used to be
regarded as such, but it is not…"

Exactly. The only
way to handle the dis-inhibiting effects of alcohol is to hold drinkers
accountable for what they do when drunk. In some ways, this may seem a
bit unfair. Most of us have made choices we regretted under the
influence of alcohol. But the alternative is to provide people with too
easy an excuse for their unwise actions. But how can someone capable of
articulating that thought go on to argue that a drunken woman's consent
to sex is invalid? How quaint to argue that men are accountable not only
for their own actions when drunk, but for those of women too.

This
will make bad law. Very bad law. At the very least, men will be
blackmailed by women who will falsely claim, after the event, that their
consent was invalid. How can it ever be disproved? Even a woman who was
stone cold sober could lie. Innocent men will be wrongly convicted
because it is impossible to assess (the effects of alcohol varying as
they do by individual and by occasion) whether a woman consented or not.
This proposal is vile, unjust and typically puritanical. On Labour's
past record that's good reason to expect it soon to be law; further
de-normalising relations between the sexes in the UK.

4 responses to “The rape of justice”

  1. Alexander De Large Avatar
    Alexander De Large

    The state is not interested in justice for it’s own sake, or the good of those who seek it from their apparatus. You should know that by now. The state is only interested in justice insofar as it keeps everything running smoothly, i.e. does not allow people a reason to reject it’s authority en masse.

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  2. Richard B Avatar

    Excellent post. Alcohol is no excuse for anything, unless it can be proved that the victim was held down and forced to drink it. Getting drunk is always voluntary, and any actions taken while drunk are the drinker’s responsibility 100%. That goes for men (it was the drink wot did it, Yer Honner) and women too. If you get drink and sleep with someone you later regret sleeping with, then don’t get drunk. If you get drunk and put yourself in a situation where you can be taken advantage of, don’t get drunk.

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  3. Rick Bradford Avatar
    Rick Bradford

    Perhaps this law should go further — how about a woman who sleeps with a guy who lied to her that he he once played on the wing for Plymouth Argyle? Or says he once met Robbie Williams backstage?
    Yes, these predatory wolves need to be banged up long-time.
    It’s 2010, and the law is preparing to portray women as helpless pawns in the face of male psychological power — no wonder feminists despair about how little they have achieved in 40 years.

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  4. Mr. X Avatar
    Mr. X

    I wouldn’t worry much about innocent people getting arrested; it’s hard enough getting a conviction as it is, due to the fact that alleged rape cases, not generally having many witnesses, tend to degenerate into a “You did it — No I didn’t” type affair. Drunkenness will be the same: the woman claims she was drunk, the man claims she wasn’t. In such a circumstance, reasonable doubt means that the jury will have to find in the defendant’s favour.

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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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