Girls, you’ve a right to drink...but beware the risk from rapists
A TOP female judge yesterday begged young women to think twice about getting drunk on nights out because it left them at the mercy of rapists and sex attackers.
Lindsey Kushner, QC, made the impassioned plea as she signed off her 43-year legal career before retiring.
The mother-of-two spoke out as she jailed a man for raping a drunken girl who had been out clubbing all night.
The 64-year-old said that it would be ‘remiss’ of her not to urge women to protect themselves as she warned that some men target women who appear ‘more vulnerable’.
Judge Kushner said: ‘Girls are perfectly entitled to drink themselves into the ground but should be aware people who are potential defendants to rape gravitate towards girls who have been drinking.
‘It should not be like that but it does happen and we see it time and time again.
‘They do it because a girl who is drunk is more likely to agree as they are more disinhibited.
‘Even if they don’t, they are less likely to [be able to] fight a man with evil intentions off.
‘Even if they manage to have their way with a girl or woman without her consent, the likelihood is she will be less likely to report it because she was drunk or cannot remember what happened or feels ashamed to deal with it.
‘Or, if push comes to shove, a girl who has been drunk is less likely to be believed than one who is sober.
‘I beg girls and women to have this in mind.
‘They are entitled to do what they like but please be aware there are men who gravitate towards a woman who might be more vulnerable.
‘That’s my final line, in my final criminal trial, and my final sentence.’
Manchester Crown Court heard that the victim had drunk a ‘significant amount’ of alcohol, including lager and vodka.
The 18-year-old had also inhaled a ‘popper’ party drug on the night out at AXM nightclub in Manchester last July.
She stayed behind when her friends went home but was removed by bouncers just past 5am after falling asleep in the club.
The young woman then went to a Burger King where she met factory workers Orlando Machado and Ricardo Rodrigues-Gomes, both 19 and Portuguese.
CCTV showed the girl holding hands and flirting with Machado before all three left at 6.15am.
They walked to a footpath by a canal where both of the men had sex with her in broad daylight.
A resident of nearby apartsix ments, who was awoken by the girl pleading with the men to stop, filmed the attack on a camera phone and called the police.
She could be heard groaning and saying: ‘No, stop. I don’t want to do it. I don’t like this, it’s not fair.’
Rodrigues-Gomes, of Gorton, Manchester, was convicted of rape. Machado, of Moston, Manchester, was cleared of the same charge.
Both of the accused claimed the girl had ‘propositioned them’.
Jailing Rodrigues-Gomes for years, Judge Kushner told him: ‘It’s up to any woman to decide what she wants to do with her body.
‘If she wants to go out on the town and meet somebody and have sex with them within an hour that’s up to her.
‘But that’s not a signal for anybody to do what they like if she doesn’t want it. That’s what you did.’
The court heard that the girl had been forced to defer a place at Salford University because of her ordeal which had left her feeling suicidal.
She said: ‘‘I feel as though I have lost an entire year of my life.
‘I no longer have any confidence and am worried to leave the house alone.
‘I feel as though my own family all look at me differently and there is often an atmosphere as though they feel sorry for me which makes me feel uncomfortable.
‘I have difficulty sleeping and at times it has got that bad that, without the support from my boyfriend, I may have attempted suicide.’
Judge Kushner, who was educated at Manchester High School for Girls and Liverpool University, qualified as a barrister in 1974.
She became a Recorder in 1993, before being appointed a senior circuit judge in 2002.
‘Girls are perfectly entitled... to do what they like but please be aware there are men who gravitate towards a woman who might be more vulnerable — Judge Lindsey Kushner ‘I beg women to have this in mind