Victim’s silence could let rapist go free, warns top prosecutor
RAPE victims should not stay silent during attacks, the country’s top prosecutor said yesterday.
Alison Saunders said if women kept quiet it could help their attackers dodge justice.
The assailant might have a ‘reasonable belief’ that their victim had given consent – allowing them to escape charges.
Mrs Saunders, who is the Director of Public Prosecutions, said men could also avoid going to court if ‘other actions’ by a complainant led them to think they had given the green light to sex.
But her suggestion that silence can sometimes amount to consent may anger those who argue that women can be too pressurised or frightened to speak out, or fear more violence.
She has been under fire over a string of collapsed rape cases. Defendants have been acquitted after it emerged that the police and Crown Prosecution Service failed to disclose crucial evidence.
Interviewed yesterday, Mrs Saunders insisted she understood the impact rape allegations could have on innocent suspects. She added: ‘We have never done the extreme of if someone says they’ve been raped or just wants to shout rape then that’s enough.
‘We look at two stages. The capacity to consent. Also, it’s the second limb which prosecutors apply: did the suspect have a reasonable belief in consent?
‘So in some of the cases you can see why even though the complainant may think they were raped, there was a reasonable belief that they had consented, either through silence or through other actions or whatever. We are there not just to be able to prosecute cases where there has been an offence, but also not to prosecute cases where there isn’t sufficient evidence.’
Mrs Saunders said she felt regret when cases collapsed because of evidence that could have been disclosed earlier. Last month the trial of 22-year-old criminology student Liam Allan, who was charged with six counts of rape, was halted by a judge after it emerged his accuser had sent hundreds of messages to friends that would have helped his case.
Yesterday a teacher falsely accused of raping a pupil called on Mrs Saunders to resign, claiming her decision to prosecute him was ‘either knowingly incompetent or knowingly corrupt’.
Kato Harris, 38, was cleared by a jury in 15 minutes of preying on a millionaire’s daughter, who named him as her attacker only after being flown to New York for weekly sessions with her therapist.
In a damning report, the judge at his 2016 trial ruled that his prosecution was an ‘improper act’. He concluded the Crown Prosecution Service pressed charges despite serious doubts over the teenager’s story. In a withering attack on the CPS, Mr Harris said it too often failed to examine all the evidence ‘because they really want that conviction’.
A spokesman for Rape Crisis England and Wales said: ‘If someone has been threatened, coerced or scared into submitting to sexual activity, they have not freely consented. We all have a moral and legal responsibility to actively seek any sexual partner’s consent and be confident it’s been fully and freely given before doing anything sexual. And consent is an ongoing process.’
‘Too frightened to speak out’