Shame on the she-furies who always assume men are guilty of rape ...
ARRESTED at dawn. Placed on police bail for nearly two months. The target of a feminist crusade to further blacken his name. What now for Ben Sullivan, the President of the Union at Oxford who has been told he will not be charged with rape? Can he expect an apology from those who campaigned so virulently against him? Don’t hold your breath. The 21yearold history and politics student was arrested in May on suspicion of rape and attempted rape; accusations made against him by two different women. As Sullivan was the head of the debating society, he was a patriarchal cherry on the cake; a very highprofile student in a prestigious university. He was shown no mercy.
Sarah Pine, President for Women at Oxford University Student Union, wasted no time in leading the witch hunt against him.
First, she pressurised a string of celebrity speakers to cancel their appearances at the Union. To their great shame, some acceded to her wishes. Dragon’s Den star and entrepreneur Julie Meyer, composer Eric Whitacre and even the Secretary General of Interpol all pulled out of scheduled speaking engagements.
At least Professor A.C. Grayling refused to join the boycott, stating that Mr Sullivan should not be subject to the ‘kangaroo court of opinion’.
GOOD for him — yet Pine would not be moved. She argued that the presumption of innocence does not mean ‘ business as usual’. Actually, it does. Innocent until proven guilty is one of the great, unshakeable tenets that underpins our society. It is not up to a pack of shefuries hellbent on vengeance to decide otherwise.
Sometimes terrible things are done in the name of equality, and rounding on an individual on the basis of an allegation is one of those instances. Depriving anyone — yes, even a man accused of rape — of his fundamental rights is not a step forward for equality — it is the complete antithesis of equality.
Had it gone to trial, Ben Sullivan’s guilt or innocence would have been a matter for the courts to decide. And if found guilty, his punishment would have been a lengthy jail sentence. Yet all this happened before the CPS had decided whether or not to charge him.
This is part of a chilling trend in which, on U.S. university campuses, feminists have become selfappointed rape cops. If a male student is accused of a sexual assault on a female student, it has become alarmingly commonplace for it ELIZABETH WALKER’S daughters have gone to the High Court to challenge their late mother’s will after she left half of her estate to a lover 23 years her junior. They claim she wasn’t in to be dealt with inhouse, as opposed to by the police.
University officials consider the evidence, deal with the matter and mete out the punishments to the offenders. President Obama has already aired his misgivings and does not want to see civil process overtaking the criminal justice system. Let us hope the collapse of the case against Ben Sullivan ensures a similar system does not gain traction here. Who knows what really happened on those drunken nights of student lust. What we do know is that Ben Sullivan has been named, shamed and decreed guilty by a cabal of enraged women before the case even went to court. His her right mind when she made the will. If the sexes were reversed and it was a man who had left his money to a younger woman, would there even be a case? life could have been ruined by these accusations. He now has to pick up the pieces and somehow carry on while they remain anonymous, their identities cloaked for all time.
MP Nigel Evans, who himself was cleared of sexual offences earlier this year, has said that whatever happens, Sullivan’s life will never be the same again.
Evans is campaigning for alleged sex offenders to have anonymity at least until they are charged; one can see his point. Somehow the need for open justice needs to be balanced against the horror of a false rape accusation, something which can leave a lifelong stigma.
Tougher sentences for those who knowingly make false claims would be a start.
On the issue of anonymity, I also feel we should either have it for both sides or neither.
Every time a case like this collapses, it is a calamity for everyone involved. No one comes out of it well.
It also makes it a tiny bit more difficult for women who have suffered a sex attack to come forward, for fear they might not be believed.
We all want to see rapists punished — but not at the cost of young men’s lives ruined by these accusations.
And as for Sarah Pine and her wild, duckingstool efforts to condemn this man before he had even been charged — I hope she is blackly ashamed of herself.