Truss and the sisterhood are on the slippery slope to injustice

Anything which makes life less traumatic for someone who says they have been sexually assaulted is surely to be welcomed. But reforms which mean that alleged rape victims will no longer face cross-examination live in court feel too much like a slippery slope to injustice.

I hate to say it, but the changes announced yesterday by Liz Truss, the Justice Secretary, are part of a man-hating agenda in our legal system which, if it continues, will poison relations between the sexes.

Alleged rape victims will now be able to give evidence in a pre-recorded video that will be played to the jury. This has happened before. The big difference is that, from September, crossexaminations will also be pre-recorded for all adult sex offences.

Alarm bells start clanging when I hear Ms Truss say that this will allow judges to cut out any inappropriate cross-examination of rape victims referring to their sexual history before it can be seen by a jury. Who decides what is inappropriate? Justice must be seen to be done, not doctored in some editing suite.

Ms Truss thinks all this is a jolly good idea because, in pilot schemes, it has led to more early guilty pleas, which relieve pressure on a system stretched to breaking point by a huge influx of sex cases. It will also “reduce the level of trauma for the victim” who was previously confronted in court by her attacker.

The Justice Secretary has no business referring to the accuser in a rape case as the “victim”. Women can lie. A man accused of rape might be telling the truth, although he will not have the protection of anonymity enjoyed by his accuser. An acquaintance of mine, wrongfully accused of rape by a woman he met on Tinder, was left alone in purgatory for 12 months while his malicious accuser had counselling and sympathy. Before a word of evidence was heard, the guilty woman was “believed” and the innocent man condemned.

Is the Lord Chancellor’s top priority to protect the innocent from wrongful conviction, as it should be, or are her reforms designed to cut costs? Is Ms Truss hellbent on increasing rape convictions, regardless of how that goal is achieved?

Obviously, it’s hard to strike a balance between protecting genuine victims who have to relive their ordeal while allowing defendants to challenge robustly the evidence against them. The changes proposed will be a blessing for women who have been raped. Alas, they also mean it’s game on for anyone who fancies making a false allegation. Think of that student in a recent case who decided the sex she had with a stranger was rape.

Would poor Lewis Tappenden have walked free if the defence barrister had not had the opportunity to cross-examine Lewis’s accuser face to face? Did the jury not benefit from seeing the young woman’s body language?

Observing how both the plaintiff and the defendant react during crossexamination is hugely helpful for a jury in the murky area of “consent”. Thanks to Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the militant sisterhood, the definition of sexual consent has been stretched to a point where a male now has to prove a female consented to sex, even when both parties were too drunk to know what happened. Thus, the fundamental principle of innocent until proven guilty is shamefully discarded.

I’m afraid that Ms Truss’s reforms, which deny a jury the right to see and hear in person an individual who claims they have been raped, are yet another attempt to alter the balance in favour of the complainant. Evidence can be given behind a screen, which means the alleged victim doesn’t have to see the monster she says attacked her, but the jury can still observe her. A pre-recorded video, which may have been edited, is hardly going to give the same gut feeling of who is telling the truth, is it?

In 1987, when the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin announced that “all heterosexual sex is rape” most people thought she was bonkers. Unbelievably, 30 years later, our own legal system is fast moving to that man-hating position.

I share the wish to see every rapist behind bars or, for preference, at the bottom of a very deep well with only a tarantula for company, but pre-recorded cross-examinations? That’s not justice, your honour.

‘I’m afraid Truss’s reforms are another attempt to alter the balance towards the rape complainant’