£80 fine for falsely crying rape.

[punky]

Absolutely unbelievable.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005290274,00.html

This woman could easily have wrecked a poor innocent man's life (she probably already has) not to mention wasted £1000s of our money and tied up officials, and all she gets is a poxy £80 fine? The maximum fine is only two years in jail. That is not enough. Nowhere near. They apparently fined her because "they didn't want to waste anymore police time". Since when has been prosecuting people for commting crimes, like this woman has done, been a waste of police time? It is what they are there for!

She's not the only bloody one either:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/w...re/3528668.stm

[Damien]

Shocking, If the attacker was not named and it was found to be fake quite quickly i think it may be best just to avoid dragging it though the courts. If however a innocent person was named and then arrested and so on then it went to court then the punishment should be greater. The problem is what happens if someone was found not gulity by the court would that then apply the women lied?

[Russ B]

The chief officer in this case had better hope his/her son is never falsely accused of rape.

[Chrysalis]

very shocking I will speak out here but I think its down to our laws favouring women.

[Angua]

It does the cause of genuine rape victims no good at all.

[makikomi]

It strikes me as strange that given the presumption of innocence until the defendent is found guilty, the alleged rapist is always named. Even if they are found to be innocent, there is always the stigma of being charged. People would say "He was accused of rape. Did he really do it?"

With certain crimes, I think the accused person should have a right to anonymity. This could be given by the judge in cases where it is clear that the defendant has been the subject of a false accusation. The defendent would never get this right if they are let off on a technicality.

I also think that women should be punished much severely if they maliciously accuse a man of rape. Not only is the allegation wasting valuable police time, but the "rapist's" name would be dragged through the mud and he'll have been subjected to unimaginable stress becuase of it. Rape is a hard crime to prove, and in some ways even harder to disprove - often it is one person's word against the other's and the courts are generally more inclined to believe the woman in such instances.

But then would this mean that some women would be discouraged from reporting genuine rapes? It's a very tough call...

At the end of the day, I think we should have a change in English law, and the NOT PROVEN verdict introduced. Too many people are found "not guity" simply because the case against them was not strong enough or because a clever lawyer introduced sufficient doubt to the case. A "not proven" verdict would not totally exonerate a defendent (as the "not guity" verdict does) but would allow a re-trial in the event of fresh evidence.

[Theodoric]

The reasoning of the police is absolutely amazing.

Essex Police said: “We felt it appropriate to issue a fixed-penalty notice in this case because enough police time had already been wasted over the allegation.

“Taking it to court would have wasted further police time.

Why don't they stop taking anyone to court. Think of that amount of police time that they'd save.

[Rob]

I'm amazed that something like that can actually be dealt with as a fixed penalty notice. It's a wonder they didn't just issue a formal caution. Of course we don' know the full facts of the case wiht all it's ins and outs.

However this watering down of punishments is symptomatic of the entire criminal system. The maximum penalty is 2 years in jail. Do you really think a court would impose that. After all how many rapists, even if they are found guilty, receive severe punishments.

This woman has done the female cause a terrible blow. It's already so difficult to prove rape, beyond reasonable doubt as required by criminal law. There is no easy way to resolve that, especially as posted before, it can simply be one persons word against another.

In this case we must have concern for the vicim, the falsely accused, whose life could well have been blighted, since there is no anominity. I know that was discussed by our government but I ddidn't get implimented. In my view, if you are innocent until proven guilty, why should you be named in any proceedings, and especially if the accuser has the right to hide behind anonimity?

Rape is a terrible thing and should be treated very seriously by the system when it does occur, but false accusations because of the severity of the consequences, need equal prosecution.

[Kliro]

Would anyone be in favour of inflicting the punishment the 'offender' would have gotten, onto the false accuser.

I'm sure it'd act as a deterrent.

[Mr_love_monkey]

The problem with threats of punishment for false allegations - is that it would probably deter true victims from coming forward.
When we say false allegations, do we meant blatantly false, or just where the defendant was found 'not guilty' - if victims were then punished for wasting time, etc - how many true rapes would go unreported for fear of recriminations?

The whole system is wrong, with the man being named right from the start, and that mud sticking all the way through the rest of his life, no matter what the outcome is.

[Chrysalis]

Yeah I would agree it is unfair to charge someone falsely implying rape the same as an actual rape offense, yes their should be prison time but not on a rape size scale. Fully agree also that noone should be named unless convicted.