Defendant Anonymity
Debate between Robert Buckland and Geraint Davies(14 years, 10 months ago)
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Geraint Davies
That is absolutely right. We talked earlier about the problem of putting things in boxes and isolated cases. Some women go through thinking that they have contributed to the incident or even that it is somehow their fault, but if they knew that the person had a consistent pattern of behaviour in raping women, they would no longer think like that. Sometimes a woman—or a man—does not want to stand in front of a court; a difficult case might fail completely because no one else comes forward and the evidence is insufficient. In those circumstances, the victim could end up being branded as a woman—sometimes a man—who makes false accusations. They have told the truth, but on the balance of evidence available from only one witness, the accused is found not guilty, and the woman then becomes “a liar”. What signal does that send when we want to encourage more witnesses to come forward?
I appreciate that the point was made seriously, but I do not agree with my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee—the point about Google raised by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) was well made—that there is an equivalence between the psychological and reputational difficulties of the accused, although they certainly exist, and a lot more women being raped. There is no qualitative equivalence between them. Quantitatively, the number of malicious, false allegations is minute, whereas the number of unreported—certainly unconvicted—rapes is massive. On the balance of the argument, qualitatively and quantitatively, the case for anonymity is not made.
Mr Buckland
The hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that there is a trade-off between the effect on an innocent person and rape being undetected and victims not being served by the system, is he?
Geraint Davies
We must maximise our impact on injustice against victims and the wrongly accused. Ultimately, however, there is a trade-off, because if we push forward with anonymity, there will be more rape, more rapists and more rape victims. A few innocent people might get accused because of the culture and environment we create, but it is obvious where I stand in that trade-off.
The chief constable of Cheshire gave the example of a vicar who used to be a teacher. There was a media revelation about him being accused, and immediately eight more victims came forward, as a result of which he was convicted. We have heard about the 12 women who came forward about the black-cab driver; suddenly, after photos were published, 81 more women came forward. In the case of the paedophile running a teenage football team, publicity led to 14 more victims coming forward. Under the anonymity proposal, that would not have happened, and we would not be protecting the victims, including children.
There is a prisoner’s dilemma whereby we rely on the brave victim coming forward and encouraging other people to have the confidence to do so. With anonymity, the risk is that that person will stand alone, and that in the time between the accusation and the court case, she will be open to harassment through texting and phone calls saying, “You haven’t got a chance. You know you’re going to lose.” Then, when she does lose, other people will look at her and say, “I’m not ending up like Mary. She was harassed for ages, and now she is regarded as a liar.” Anonymity changes fundamentally the power relationship between victim and accused. The accused will realise that, it will reduce the risk to serial rapists who use drugs or alcohol to carry out their crimes, and it will increase rapist confidence.
Under the proposal, the balance could tip even further against the victim. The statistics already suggest that 0.5% of women are raped each year—about 140,000 women a year. Of those, about 100,000 do not report the rape. Why is that? Obviously, there is a systemic problem with the justice system. About 5% of women in the population—1.4 million—have been raped. Despite that horrendous figure, we are discussing measures to deter people from coming forward.
The chief constable of Cheshire gave a snapshot of statistics in the year to March 2010. He reported that 155 crimes had been recorded as rape, 33 of which were prosecuted, with 23 convictions. Nobody was found to have put forward a malicious, false accusation, although 13 cases were regarded as non-criminal. His evidence suggested that, occasionally, accusations are dismissed. I do not pretend that there are not malicious, false allegations, but there are few of them. Obviously, false allegations are serious, because when people are found to have made them they are punished by, for instance, as has been mentioned, two years in jail, which is fair enough. However, we should not change legislation because of a small number of people, when a large number of people are suffering very serious consequences, against a backdrop of a massive amount of rape. We should not rush a change through before the summer recess as has been suggested.
Women, in particular, will see the proposal in the wider context of a new Government suggesting that there should be less closed circuit television and less use of DNA, and now they are suggesting that there should be anonymity. Plus they are cutting £125 million from the police grant. When all that is put together, it does not look good to the victim, or suspected victim, of rape. To those watching this debate, I point out that 1.4 million women have been raped. Again, that is against a long-term cultural backdrop of endemic sexism in the judicial system. I see men on the Government Benches raising their eyebrows, but we have all heard about contributory negligence: “She was drunk”; “She had a short skirt on”; “He couldn’t help himself”; “He was a former boyfriend”; “And what about her sexual history?”; “What about his military career?”—all irrelevant, erroneous considerations. Consent is consent.