What the blazes was the Court thinking?
Metro article here.
A man’s life nearly ruined and she only gets a fine of £200? (And up to 15 days doing [del]f*** all[/del] ‘rehabilitation activity requirement’ and a 4 month suspended sentence - both of which are pretty meaningless.)
Nearly ruin a man’s life for £200? Wow.
The deterrent effect of this will be nil.
If the man had been convicted, how many women would be satisfied with a £200 fine and a suspended sentence?
There’s an implication here, especially in your final sentence, that a false accusation of rape is equivalent to an actual rape. Is that something you genuinely believe? If not, what do you think should be the correct minimum punishment for a false accusation of rape? Remember, this is one that involved a teenager with no previous record and that was recanted quickly–it looks to me like it was recanted within 24 hours.
Absolutely such accusations should incur penalties. I’m not sure what size penalty is appropriate.
Well, he has a good case to build a civil suit on. That will surely cost her more than £200.
I’m no woman hating woman hater but I have to admit, I do think that the crime of falsely crying rape is not treated seriously enough.
What is an appropriate punishment? I’m not sure. But it is a heinous crime with some awful consequences for the victim and far too often it seems that the accuser gets barely a slap on the wrist.
That girl would have suffered far more serious punishments if she had committed what I would consider to be far lesser crimes, if there is sliding scale of crimes then false rape cries are currently in the wrong place on that scale.
Indeed:
I think it’s on the same level with an attempted rape. The consequences of a false conviction could be on the order of magnitude of a decade in jail. By lying, you’re conspiring to have that person kidnapped and confined for 10 or so years, and if you did that with a gun on your own instead of with the law, you’d be looking at at least as long a sentence as you would for a sexual assault that did not involve attempted murder.
She is 18. Probably not wealthy. I am guessing she is judgement proof.
It’s impossible to address this issue with thought and concern when it’s framed as being an analog to rape itself. You’ve poisoned the well in your own OP.
If the crime is serious, then let’s talk about that, instead of whinging about how women have it so much better then men because rapists get stronger convictions than false accusers.
This is a really good way to put it. I certainly think that a 200-pound penalty is real low for something like this–but wrapping my brain around treating it as equivalent to rape is so bizarre that it’s hard to think about what an appropriate penalty would be in a rational manner.
What does £200 come out to in real money?
If only the OP was equally concerned with all of the unreported rape and sexual abuse in this world. But no, the relatively rare crime of false accusation is the greatest outrage evah!!!
I’m starting to think Quartz has only three topics in him:
About €227.
Or it is 227€?
Meh.
She is 17.
She is stupid
She recanted PDQ.
Pled guilty at earliest opportunity.
Yeah, if I was the judge, I’d probably have awarded her some sort of custodial sentence ( a few weeks), but there is nothing in the record to suggest that the judgement is perverse. Its within the law and discretion of the judge and a decision that a reasonable Tribunal could have reached,
Let us not forget that the victim is not limited to only the court’s decision. He has civil options, I’m sure, if he wishes to pursue them.
Can we recall the judge?
A Stormy Daniels thread could cover all three.
Well, maybe the Brits can.
In England civil claim after a criminal conviction are limited in scope.
As a matter of principle, should a false accusation of a crime carry similar consequences to the crime itself? I’d argue that it should. If someone is convicted of a crime, then they will have to pay some consequence that we as a society have chosen. If we’ve done that part right, then the consequence paid should be of a comparable severity to the crime itself. And if a person falsely accuses another of a crime, then they’re trying to cause someone else to suffer something unjustly. And so the punishment for that should be comparable to the suffering they were trying to inflict.
That said, if the justice system works properly, then convictions for false accusation would be fairly rare, because it’s a very difficult crime to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s not enough to just find the originally-accused party not guilty, because the burden of proof is different. And even if you can show beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did not commit the original crime, the accuser could still argue that they reasonably believed the accusation to be truthful, which would also be a difficult defense to overcome.