Close Menu
    Victims in rape cases can lie in court, says leading barrister
    United Kingdom

    Victims in rape cases can lie in court, says leading barrister

    Share.
    View 13 Comments

    13 Comments

    2. antipodal22 on

      The lawman involved there appears to be a busy man, spinning rather a lot of plates as it were.

      It would appear that this particular plate is generating some interest for his public profile, though this is of course rather a cynical take. I’m not 100% on whether or not this is something that’s actually controversial or if it’s rather just a considered remark regarding nuance in legal proceedings not commonly presented for public discussion.

      I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong here if it’s a matter of legal practice or something more incendiary on behalf of the KC.

      Edit; I challenge the downvoter to explain what exactly it is they disagree with considering I left my comment open to interpretation regarding my actual position.

      A lack of explanation proves the existence of bandwagoning and your downvotes are meaningless.

    4. kettle_of_f1sh on

      Anyone who lies to the police/court should be punished, even if they are the victim.

    5. Shawn_The_Sheep777 on

      I was a juror on a rape trial last year. The victim gave evidence in a taped interview. Having watched courtroom dramas over the years it seemed that in real life the prosecution barrister went very easy on her. It seemed more like a polite chat. I understand why things are done the way they are but as a juror I think you learn more about people if they are actually in the room with you. The thing that profoundly stuck with me was that the judge was not prepared to allow a majority verdict. So all 12 of us had to agree for the guy to be convicted. So it only takes one juror to have doubts and the defendant goes free.

    6. Iz-zY1994 on

      (I read the Scottish Herald article because paywall)

      I was open to his points until it said he didn’t accept that rape had a low conviction rate.

      It does, factually, have an astonishingly low conviction rate, especially when you consider how few cases go to court. Our justice system is fundamentally not set up to prosecute rape – and that’s okay until it isn’t.

      Rape can be really hard to prove, it’s so rarely the stranger in a dark alley image we all have, it’s people known to us; intimate partners, friends, family, coworkers. And fairly often there is an existing sexual relationship, so the question moves from “did it happen” to “was there consent”. That means the evidence is entirely “he said she said” at that point and how on earth do you even build a court system designed to handle that? You don’t, frankly, and we have to be okay with the limitations of human ability.

      But I think the failings of the justice system with respect to rape often go beyond that limitation, and we have to make efforts to reduce those errors and biases. It is entirely possible Mr Ross is correct that this rule is being misapplied – the Supreme Court doesn’t seem to think so. But it worries me that he doesn’t even acknowledge the base problem – that rape is an underconvicted crime – and that, to me, is a dangerous bias.

    7. ZX52 on

      Considering the conviction rate for rape has catered over the last few years, how much of an impact is this actually having?

    8. Juniper2324 on

      Best example is a victim who accused a man of raping her and getting her pregnant at 13.

      There was no evidence she had given birth, but the accused wasn’t allowed to present that to the jury. Very strange and almost a parody

    9. Rhinofishdog on

      “The conviction [rate] for rape cases involving a single complainer is only 24 per cent. The overall conviction rate for all crime is 86 per cent. Too many women are being completely let down by the Scottish criminal justice system.”

      The way this is constantly brought up is so extremely dishonest it’s mindboggling. They always imply that the low conviction rate means women are let down. There is no evidence for that, we could just as well make the claim that women constantly make false accusations.

      …

      and obviously the answer is option number 3 – the nature of a SA crime is more difficult to find evidence for….

    10. Defiant_Employee6681 on

      The thing with rape (more-so than any almost any other crime) is that, if there were witnesses to it, it would probably not be committed

    11. rugby-thrwaway on

      Unless I’ve missed something, I think the Times has fucked this up.

      All the quotes from the KC and the examples, especially as explained in [the other article](https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25289949.kc-ross-raises-concerns-accused-rights-rape-trials/), seem to be pointing towards saying that the accuser can lie *outside of court* and the accused can’t present this as evidence *inside of court*, not that the accuser can lie *to the court* and the accused can’t refute it.

      Especially the second example, where the prosecution *dropped a charge* because they thought it would allow the defence to present evidence that would affect the other charge. Sounds like the defence would have been allowed to refute a direct accusation in court, but couldn’t present the evidence just because the accusation had been made out of court.

    12. According-Face-3214 on

      A legal system shouldn’t make victims out of people who have been raped, they should help make them survivor’s!

    13. RockTheBloat on

      There is currency in being a victim these days. I’m not saying it was better that people were encouraged to feel shame about it, obviously not, and it no doubt led to offenders that could have been successfully prosecuted going unpunished. But in 2025, lonely people can gain a whole network of friends and inordinate amounts of attention by being seen as a victim, we incentivise false narratives and exaggeration. Whilst these likely make up a relatively small percentage of reported rapes (we can’t know), any moves to lower the legal threshold or evidential requirements will be exploited.