Britannia Radio

Monday, 24th May 2010

A tragedy, and a travesty

11:27am

Following the risible kangaroo court set up by the General Medical Council Andrew Wakefield, the doctor at the heart of the MMR controversy, has now been struck off the medical register while his colleagues have yet to learn their own fate. This is a tragedy and a travesty. I believe a monstrous injustice has been done here, which has crucified the one doctor who tried to alleviate and prevent the suffering of a particular group of children and which has also betrayed their parents. The full story of how this sinister travesty was accomplished and the full range of people who were complicit in it -- along with what it means for both medicine and public safety -- has yet to be revealed. Over time, I hope this will eventually be achieved.

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Sunday, 23rd May 2010

The World Turned Upside Down

10:12pm

As of this moment my new book The World Turned Upside Down:The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power is at no 16 on the Amazon non-fiction list and 53 on the Amazon bestseller list overall.

May 24, 2010 How to restore justice to rape trials Daily Mail, 24 May 2010 Even before tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech, our new Lib-Con coalition has achieved a palpable hit. It has upset the feminist Sisterhood. For this we must all give thanks. After the long years of Labour’s Harman Terror, during which extreme man-hating feminism seemed to carry all before it, any sign that common sense may at last be reasserting itself is more than welcome. But have the ‘Cleggeroons’ gone far enough? The trouble started last week when the coalition published its programme for government which contained the surprising pledge that men accused of rape would be granted the same anonymity in court as their accusers. This appeared to be a response to the fact that men who are cleared of rape still leave court with their reputations trashed, even though the evidence against them may have been tenuous in the extreme. In one such case last year, chef Peter Bacon, who was cleared by a jury in 45 minutes after being accused of rape following a drunken one-night stand, felt his reputation was so badly damaged that he changed his name and left the country. Nevertheless, the coalition’s proposal provoked an immediate outcry. The Fawcett Society said giving anonymity to rape defendants would tip public opinion in their favour, while Women Against Rape said the plan was an insult because it would reinforce the belief that many women who report rape are lying. It is, of course, an article of faith among such activists that women who claim they have been raped never lie because all men accused of rape are guilty. This despite the steady stream of cases in which men have been found not guilty after the evidence against them has fallen apart in court, either because it is demonstrably false and malicious or merely flimsy and ambiguous. Of course, the belief that women are incapable of lying is ridiculous. In 2007, Diane Berriman was jailed for harassment and perverting the course of justice after falsely claiming she had been raped twice by a married man and once by another man. Her accusations meant that two innocent men, Paul Cook and Trevor Hirst, spent time in prison awaiting trial. Or take the case of Warren Blackwell, who spent more than three years in jail having been falsely accused of rape by a woman with a long history of making false rape accusations. Despite such instances, however, the certainty that all men accused of rape are guilty drove government policy during virtually the whole 13 years of Labour rule. The cry of feminist activists both in and out of government has been throughout that the rape conviction rate, at a paltry 6 per cent, is too low. But that figure is deeply misleading because it includes all reports of rape, regardless of whether the prosecution service deems them to be well enough founded to be brought to court. In fact, of those rape defendants who are tried nearly 60 per cent are convicted — a higher conviction rate than for other violent attacks. Furthermore, many acquittals occur because, with casual sex now so common, it has become much more difficult for a jury to decide beyond reasonable doubt whether the sexual encounter in question was consensual or not. In other words, juries are simply doing their job properly at a time of profound social change. Nevertheless, feminist activists claim, perversely, that the acquittal rate demonstrates bias against women — and have accordingly tried vindictively to load the judicial dice against men. Without any doubt, rape is a vile and disgusting crime. But these feminists have used it as a stick with which to beat the entire male sex. In a reversal of the most fundamental principle of justice, men accused of rape are perceived to be guilty and accordingly have to prove that they are innocent. So the coalition is now trying to level the playing field by granting male defendants the same anonymity as their accusers. But although its aim to remedy injustice is laudable, it is tackling the wrong end of this problem. We don’t need more anonymity in rape trials — we need less. The injustice being done to men derives from the false accusations that result in the 40 per cent acquittal rate. And what fuels those untrue claims is that the women who make them know they will never be held to account. Women were originally granted anonymity in rape cases because of the often harsh cross-examination to which they were subjected, which laid bare their sexual history. So to encourage those who had been sexually attacked to brave the ordeal in court, their identities were kept secret. When the new law was introduced in 1976, there was some force behind this argument. Indeed, the Mail led the campaign which resulted in this change in the rules. But circumstances now are very different. Women’s sexual behaviour has changed beyond recognition. We are in a far less prissy age. Sexual modesty has gone out of the window. True, cross-examination in such cases can be very unpleasant. The defendant’s barrister has an obligation to throw all manner of accusations at a witness in order to test their argument to destruction. Cross-examination is often just as unpleasant in cases other than those involving sexual violence. Yet there are no demands for witnesses in these to be granted anonymity to encourage them to come forward. Transparency in court proceedings is a cornerstone of our justice system and should be overridden only in truly exceptional circumstances — such as where someone’s safety is at risk. But that argument goes for male defendants in rape cases as well as for their female accusers. Just as the woman making the allegation should be named, so the man who is accused should be named as well. The 1976 law which gave anonymity to women complainants also provided anonymity for defendants until 1988. This was eventually abolished after judges said that it not only ran against the interests of open justice, but also prevented other evidence against rapists from being gathered because the police were unable to publish their names. This argument surely remains valid. Moreover, the important point is that the real injustice to men in those 40 per cent of rape cases where they are acquitted is not that their identities are made known but that they are the victims of false allegations in the first place. And if women were held publicly to account for the claims they make, the number of those false accusations would undoubtedly drop. What has happened over recent years is that, because of the feminist hysteria over rape, the bar above which men have to prove their innocence has been raised, while the bar against women making false allegations has been lowered. Rape has been redefined from a crime in which someone is forced to have sex against their will to cover a wide variety of non-violent sexual encounters. Thus a woman is encouraged to claim she has been raped when, for example, with the benefit of hindsight, she may become aggrieved about what she voluntarily allowed to happen, particularly when she was rather the worse for wear. This is not rape, nor is it justice by any reasonable standard. If the coalition really is as committed to civil liberty as it says it is, it will need to go rather further to put a stop to the injustice and absurdity of the gender politics that has driven rape law off the rails.