Another Court Case For Rape Where The Victims Names

[trt]

are not disclosed, but the accused is!

One is 62 now and it happened to her when she was 15, something is not right here!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540555/Coronation-Street-star-Bill-Roache-court-child-sex-trial.html

[askyourgran]

I think it only fair that after all this time the accuser is named. Coming forward and naming and shaming someone is dreadful, whether innocent or guilty the accused should be given the courtesy to know who that person is. Although this does not condone the offences, in some cases these were stupid young women who were probably swayed by their brush with fame and still continued to go back to the abuser after the initial offence. Could this be why the 62 year old -no longer a blushing maiden is afraid to be shown up now.

[jackthehat]

The Accused knows full-well who the Accuser is.........the name(s) just isn't/aren't released to the general public.

[humbersloop]

the accused certainly do know who their accuser is ayg, the public don't

[sara3]

askyourgran, you've shocked me.

[askyourgran]

^^ Ah so! thanks for that.

[askyourgran]

Sorry sara3, I've shocked myself - not having a good day today.

[ummmm]

Swayed by their brush with fame or easily manipulated and coerced because of their young age?

[FredPuli43]

Quite. The rule is no publicity, not total anonymity.

The question is whether it would be better to have no publicity of the defendant's identity until he or she was convicted, regardless of what the charge is. I happen to think it would be, because there is a feeling that mud sticks however much the prosecution evidence is proved false or discredited and an acquittal results..

[ChillDoubt]

I'm still trying to understand why having been allegedly raped by Roache previously, the 15 year old put herself in a position to be alone with him at a second property a few months later, resulting in a second alleged attack?
Some might (and often do) say 'young, gullible impressionable 15 year old' when such alleged attacks take place, yet for the purpose of commission of all offences in law one assumes full criminal responsibility at the age of 14.
That's not to say the female in question is lying, I'm just pointing out that it is an odd set of circumstances to allow oneself to be possibly attacked again so soon after when one would ordinarily be fearful and avoid him at all costs.

[FredPuli43]

One also assumes that a girl of 14 is not sufficiently mature to deal with sexual activity of the kind alleged, ChillDoubt. That she is capable of committing crime at ten years of age is irrelevant

[ChillDoubt]

I'm not saying she's capable of comitting crime, more trying to point out the disparity.
As I said, what perplexes me is that she fell foul of the same circumstances only months later, but I'm sure the defence have doubltess picked up on that.

[ummmm]

I think it's called grooming.

Manipulating a young persons emotions to get them to do what you want.

I suppose you'd have to experience it to really understand.

[FredPuli43]

I'm sure they have, CD, but unfortunately their instructions are that the girl never set foot in any home belonging to or associated with the defendant. She evidently knows some details of what homes he had. Further, it would be odd if a complainant ,who was inventing a story to get him convicted would, in so doing, put in details suggesting that she consented. Not a defence for him, but why would she give an account which casts doubt on her motive? If she is out to get him, she'd keep it simple. On the other hand, if she is telling the truth, her account makes sense in the context and fits her other answers.

[trt]

## Although this does not condone the offences, in some cases these were stupid young women who were probably swayed by their brush with fame and still continued to go back to the abuser after the initial offence. ##

I agree with you 100% askyourgran!

[ChillDoubt]

Can't make head nor tail of your last post FP.
As for 'if she was out to get him, she would keep it simple', maybe she is some sort of fantasist, not the sharpest knife in the drawer and likes to guild the lily? Who knows?

I'm just sceptical because it's taken someone over 4 decades to decide to make an allegation.
Had there been more than one victim making such allegations and a pattern established (as in the Stuart Hall case i.e. multiple victims and an obvious M.O by the offender) I'd be less so I guess.

[jno]

ChillDoubt, there are five women making allegations about Roache, all from the same period. Two are sisters, the rest don't know each other. Whether the allegations suggest a pattern we shall have to see.

[ChillDoubt]

Ah, thanks for the clarification, I took it there was only one accuser in the Roache case.
Still seems unfair that one defendant is allowed to be named but 5 accusers retain their anonymity.

[FredPuli43]

We have a reason for the long delay. It was given by the woman herself; it appears that women in these cases come forward to unburden themselves once they know that they are not alone and something will be done.

Remember that the old law of evidence was against them, quite apart from different times . It did not allow conviction when the case was simply one word against another.Even evidence of distress was not enough to support the prosecution.

[jno]

FredPuli, regarding suppressing defendants' names, do you remember the Austen Donnellan case from about 20 years ago? He was accused of raping a fellow student. He said she consented. She said she couldn't, she was too drunk. (On that point I think the judge concluded that just because she wouldn't have consented if sober, it didn't mean consent given while drunk was invalid.)

Anyway, the defence suggested he had ignored her protests and carried on. But the defence produced a witness who said she'd been in exactly the same position: in bed with Donnellan, he'd tried it on, she'd said No - and he'd immediately stopped. So he wasn't a lascivious beast who was a menace to all women, but a gentlemanly chap who readily accknowledged a woman's right to say No at any point. He was duly acquitted.

There were several odd points about the case (not least the fact that Donnellan himself brought it to the police and asked to be prosecuted), but the main one for these purposes is that the witness who saved his bacon did so only because she read about the charges and felt an injustice was being done.

If his name had been suppressed, she wouldn't have known anything about it until he was behind bars.

Publicity works both ways.

[FredPuli43]

I can match that jno. I had a case where counsel thought the defence hopeless. On the second day of the trial, a man contacted the court to say that the woman's behaviour was identical to that of a woman he had met in the same area. Had my opening not been in the local paper, the man would not have read of the case. The woman had asked for unusual violence in intercourse. It turned out that this woman was the complainant. The man was called and the defendant acquitted.

That had nothing to do with her being named but everything to do with press coverage.