06/22/07 (UK):
Rape Expert Debate: Part 2. UK Law To Change?
|
|
In the UK, there has been historic resistance from the judiciary to allowing expert testimony on rape victim behavior. But now, 'new and tougher' rape laws are on the way in defiance of the objections of judges, Government ministers have declared.
As in most of the US, the rules will allow prosecutors to use expert evidence in court to try to persuade juries to bring in more guilty verdicts against men accused of rape.
This would be aimed at countering what the Government believe are myths about victims commonly believed by juries.
Crown Court judges have made clear their misgivings over the idea of changing the law to make it easier to get convictions.
Critics say the rule would mean politically-motivated campaigners would be admitted to the witness box to sway juries with claims about rape that are nothing to do with the facts of the case in question.
The dispute over the handling of rape cases comes while the judiciary and the Government remain at loggerheads over the new Ministry of Justice, the department created last month to combine courts administration with the running of jails and the probation service.
Senior judges fear the new Ministry will be able to bring pressure on the courts and influence the way cases are decided.
Yesterday the Home Office confirmed that new rules are to be drawn up to 'strengthen' the law and to force up the rate of convictions.
These currently show that only just over one in 20 of the men accused of rape are found guilty in UK courts.
"The Government believes the conviction rate in rape cases remains at an unacceptably low level," a spokesman said.
"We are looking at options to strengthen the legislation."
The spokesman added that a consultation on the reforms had attracted 100 responses and "all the different points of view including those of the Council of Circuit Judges have now been taken into account."
The 637 members of the Council are the Crown Court judges who preside at rape trials.
The new laws will also mean prosecutors can play juries video tapes of victims' interviews with police, with the aim of bringing home to juries the impact of rape.
However, judges believe that showing videos is an attempt to play on the emotions of a jury that does nothing to clarify the evidence.
Ministers are understood to have dropped attempts to bring in 'sex breathalyser' rules in an attempt to set a line where it would automatically be rape to have sex with a drunken woman.
The decision follows the Benjamin Bree case in March, in which appeal judges freed a young man jailed for five years after having sex with a drunken student.
The judges said that a woman's capacity to consent to sex after drinking varied from individual to individual and that no-one should set up 'some kind of grid system' that would set a point at which sex becomes rape.
© X-Pro 2007
|
|
