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Is it never going to stop?

(93 Posts)
Whitewavemark2 Thu 26-Oct-23 17:28:47

Another story MP arrested for alleged rape.

MaizieD Sun 29-Oct-23 14:50:43

Anniel

I found a link. He has been under investigation FOR A YEAR!!!

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-66738602

Don't the tories have one who has been under investigation for a year or more, too?

I'd suggest that you are scraping the barrel for Labour misdeeds whereas the tory's seem to follow each other like London buses...

Anniel Sun 29-Oct-23 14:45:37

I found a link. He has been under investigation FOR A YEAR!!!

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-66738602

Anniel Sun 29-Oct-23 14:34:27

Innocent until proved guilty. Another swipe at the Conservatives! I hold no brief for Crispin Blunt. However, he named himself and hints at blackmail ( he had approached the police about it beforehand) so all we can do is wait and see.

Now, those of you who would support Labour, can you tell us what happened to the Labour MP Nick Brown? I have read that currently he is persona non grata in the party and has not been seen around the. Commons. Maybe you can turn your gossip towards him. Then there is the plagiarism accusation against Rachel Reeves. Have I missed the thread about her?

DrWatson Sun 29-Oct-23 13:24:11

"Is it never going to stop"?? Well, in answer to your history-free question, NO!!

Politicos, Royals, elected Presidents, Union Leaders, etc etc, any and all who either get elected to power, or are born into it, may all be corrupt, incompetent and/or just evil (oh, and for that, add in a few despots who just seized that power). Oops, and I nearly forgot, some Church leaders who got appointed and then, shall we say, lost their way?!

Doesn't mean they all are, but a subset, certainly fail one or more of those tests.

It's been going on for many centuries, right round the planet, and won't be stopping anytime soon. Depressing isn't it?!

Design100 Sun 29-Oct-23 13:17:39

I wanted to add a short story Of why the predators get away for lots of reasons and they don’t get caught out. The low levels of court prosecutors are reflective of the court system too. I have sat on 3 juries so seen first hand how things are in court .
I was raped with the help of a Ritalin type drug on the night of my 16 th birthday decades ago in a house local to me. They said we were gonna have a party for me on a school night It was the brother of a so called boyfriend who had colluded together for it to happen. I never had a boyfriend before then.
I thought it was my fault ! They were both 7 or 8 years older than me and I was’ dating’ one of the brothers. Obviously with hindsight I was groomed at the school Gate. In year 10. So fallout is no 0 levels. All U grade. off rails a bit, risky behaviour, other predators around too , no university like siblings for me, no trust in anyone etc etc. and no proper falling in love and boyfriends. It’s been a hard road to go on.

so I reported it this year and the police were very good. They interviewed the brother at the station and I had never seen him since that Thursday night
To cut a long story short he admitted remembering me. [ well after a bit of pressure] he said just touching me not rape, and so I’ve been encouraged to go legal forward.
The Cps they concluded would most likely take the case to court.
After a long hard think I ve decided that I may lose and I’d prefer him looking over his shoulder for next 20 plus years incase things change and I do testify or others do.

To those ppl around. who ask why take so long to report it? Basically it take guts / courage to tell at the time [ and now too ] and mostly [ like my parents ] didn’t actually care what went on I my life. anyway or actually believe me.
So I ignored it. Of course it’s not forgotten but now I feel happier knowing I done right thing. Who knows he may have other girls they planned to do this too . It’s not a straight forward thing. T bh. I support rape charities where possible. I agree it’s hard to get convictions as rape is a crime that generally ! has no witnesses so yes it’s under reported I feel brave now and it does not matter when Or how long ago it took place it’s better to report if you are able and want to get some closure.

Germanshepherdsmum Sun 29-Oct-23 13:04:12

Wasn’t he dead by the time what he had been doing came out? You can’t try a corpse

Buttonjugs Sun 29-Oct-23 12:28:56

Germanshepherdsmum

I can’t call someone a rapist unless they have been convicted. Juries don’t convict unless satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offence was committed, and (rightly) the CPS don’t authorise prosecution unless they believe there is a good prospect of conviction.

So Jimmy Savile wasn’t a rapist then?

Buttonjugs Sun 29-Oct-23 12:27:30

Many women have their lives ruined for no reason because someone rapes them. Most of them never get justice because it’s so hard to prove. Innocent until proven guilty is not the same for sexual offences. Jimmy Savile was never prosecuted in a court of law, just saying.

SWT61 Sun 29-Oct-23 12:19:42

Well isn't it true, you are innocent till proven guilty? We'll have to wait and see, it's not looking good though is it 😕

Iam64 Sat 28-Oct-23 11:38:28

no disagreement between us on this gsm. It’s a difficult subject.
convictions are vanishingly rare. Rape is not

maddyone Sat 28-Oct-23 11:14:45

My husband was on a jury some years ago. There were two rape cases, neither resulted in convictions. Both the women were in relationships with the men involved and had behaved in such a way as to make conviction extremely unlikely.

Germanshepherdsmum Sat 28-Oct-23 09:25:49

It’s particularly difficult where the woman has been in a relationship with the man, which is often the case. I agree with the CPS’s threshold for authorising a prosecution. Taking an iffy case to court just clogs the courts up further and wastes public money.

Iam64 Sat 28-Oct-23 09:10:24

My memory is that the cps won’t authorise prosecution unless they believe at least 80-85% prospect of conviction. My work experience led me to be sadly well aware that sex offenders are rarely successfully prosecuted. I m ‘beyond reasonable doubt ‘ is necessary. The difficulty often is proving that.

Germanshepherdsmum Fri 27-Oct-23 21:54:00

I can’t call someone a rapist unless they have been convicted. Juries don’t convict unless satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offence was committed, and (rightly) the CPS don’t authorise prosecution unless they believe there is a good prospect of conviction.

Iam64 Fri 27-Oct-23 20:27:17

Yes I do understand the complexity. My point stands though, it’s vanishingly rare for a rapist to be convicted

Germanshepherdsmum Fri 27-Oct-23 17:48:54

Surely though, they can only be offences if proven?

I can understand increased reports but decreased convictions - it is frequently the case that the complainant has been in a relationship with the accused, which can be proved through mobile phone records if the complainant permits their phone to be taken for analysis - which many don’t - and that makes it difficult for a jury to decide beyond all reasonable doubt that the offence was committed. It can also be a reason for the CPS declining to authorise a prosecution. It’s not difficult to prove forensically that intercourse occurred, but very difficult in the absence of witnesses or injuries to the complainant or tearing of clothes to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was not consensual.

Iam64 Fri 27-Oct-23 17:30:47

The quote is from the victimscommissioner.org. I states in the year 2021 there were 67,125 rape offences recorded

Office for national statistics - the volume of sexual offences recorded by the police has been increasing over the last decade although the numbers remain well below the number of victims estimated in the survey. .. figures for year ending March 2022 show an increase of 31% to 195,566 police recorded offences compared to the previous year
So increased reports, decreased convictions

Germanshepherdsmum Fri 27-Oct-23 17:21:30

Was that rape offences or accusations of rape Iam?

Iam64 Fri 27-Oct-23 17:18:24

In the year to December 2021, there were 67,125 rape offences recorded. The number of completed rape prosecutions plummeted from 5,190 in 2016-17 to 2,409 in 2021. The number of convictions almost halved.

Dame Vera Baird - ‘in my first annual report in 2020, I made headlines by saying we were witnessing the effective decriminalisation of rape”

No wonder few victims report rape.

Cabowich Fri 27-Oct-23 16:53:24

Guilty or not, I'm pleased to see he has "outed" himself. Pretty sensible considering the two-week circus that ensued when everyone was trying to find out who the presenter was in the Huw Edwards case.

We've barely blinked an eye at Crispin Blunt in comparison.

GrannyGravy13 Fri 27-Oct-23 15:53:29

Whitewavemark2

GrannyGravy13

Whitewavemark2

Whatever the outcome of this accusation, it seems to me that a lot of MPs live very seedy lives and seem to be permanently in the gutter.

Certainly not people most would want to mix with socially.

A quick Google search shows that out of 650 MP’s 23 have been suspended so approximately 5%.

This is over all parties sitting in the commons.

That’s the ones that have committed an offence. I’m talking about lifestyle choices that I think many would find a tad yucky

I doubt if MP’s in general are more tacky than any other human.

Look at all the so called celebrities who have hit the headlines this year for alleged unsavoury deeds.

We have a MP in our extended family and know several others, they are not tacky in any way, shape or form.

AGAA4 Fri 27-Oct-23 15:38:33

There are probably a lot more than 5% who have stayed under the radar.

Whitewavemark2 Fri 27-Oct-23 15:35:14

GrannyGravy13

Whitewavemark2

Whatever the outcome of this accusation, it seems to me that a lot of MPs live very seedy lives and seem to be permanently in the gutter.

Certainly not people most would want to mix with socially.

A quick Google search shows that out of 650 MP’s 23 have been suspended so approximately 5%.

This is over all parties sitting in the commons.

That’s the ones that have committed an offence. I’m talking about lifestyle choices that I think many would find a tad yucky

Galaxy Fri 27-Oct-23 15:31:43

And in terms of sexual misbehaviour my guess is amongst female Mps it will be close to 0.

GrannyGravy13 Fri 27-Oct-23 14:30:30

Whitewavemark2

Whatever the outcome of this accusation, it seems to me that a lot of MPs live very seedy lives and seem to be permanently in the gutter.

Certainly not people most would want to mix with socially.

A quick Google search shows that out of 650 MP’s 23 have been suspended so approximately 5%.

This is over all parties sitting in the commons.