Up Front: All Together Now
291 Responses
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It depends exactly what it was she said online. If all she did was discuss her group sex fantasy, then why should she disclose that to the prosecution? It should be irrelevant.
Any half decent investigation into a sexual assault should also find out how the victim knew the accused, and what happened in the time leading up to the assault. If the police and/or the prosecutor didn't ask those questions, they weren't doing their job.
What happens before the woman says 'no', doesn't change it being rape. But it's sure as hell going to come up and have an impact upon the court hearing. Only an act of parliament is going to make that go away.
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It is hard to imgaine anything the woman may have written online that would mean she couldn't withdraw consent latter.
She could have written 'I want to vist you and have sex with your friends'
if she latter changes her mind then the whole thing should stop.
The problem is an evidentary one where the facts are disputed. That should have been put to a jury.
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oh and does this set a precedant?
Can you get a woman all hot and bothered online get her to admit she has had a fantasy about rape and then you have case law to get you out of it?
yikes, i dont like where this could go.
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"It is an offence for a man to rape a woman or another man... "
As a code for prosecution it does appear to start off in an old fashioned restrictive manner?
Like the law it is simplifying. It not an offence for a woman to rape a woman or for a woman to rape a man. Not because it's not sexual assault (in New Zealand, called "sexual violation"), but because anything a woman could do would not be rape. Indeed, in New Zealand, it's not even possible for a man to rape a man.
The code for prosecution reads like that because it's kind of important: "Do not charge a woman with rape."
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oh and does this set a precedent?
No.
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Like the law it is simplifying. It not an offence for a woman to rape a woman or for a woman to rape a man. Not because it's not sexual assault (in New Zealand, called "sexual violation"), but because anything a woman could do would not be rape. Indeed, in New Zealand, it's not even possible for a man to rape a man.
...at least we've got sexual violation on the books, but *headdesk*
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Like the law it is simplifying. It not an offence for a woman to rape a woman or for a woman to rape a man. Not because it's not sexual assault (in New Zealand, called "sexual violation"), but because anything a woman could do would not be rape. Indeed, in New Zealand, it's not even possible for a man to rape a man.
I would like to reiterate Lucy's headdesk. I didn't know that. And because I was confused, this from the Crimes Act:
28 Sexual violation defined
*
(1) Sexual violation is the act of a person who—
(a) rapes another person; or
(b) has unlawful sexual connection with another person.(2) Person A rapes person B if person A has sexual connection with person B, effected by the penetration of person B's genitalia by person A's penis,—
(a) without person B's consent to the connection; and
(b) without believing on reasonable grounds that person B consents to the connection.(3) Person A has unlawful sexual connection with person B if person A has sexual connection with person B—
(a) without person B's consent to the connection; and
(b) without believing on reasonable grounds that person B consents to the connection.(4) One person may be convicted of the sexual violation of another person at a time when they were married to each other.
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I'm with Paul on not wanting to discuss it without all the facts, but is it possible rather than lying by omission, she just didn't realise it was relevant?
Not beyond reasonable doubt. It looks like she has been lying for 6 months and these men have been kept in prison on the basis of her being a credibly truthful person.
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Not beyond reasonable doubt. It looks like she has been lying for 6 months and these men have been kept in prison on the basis of her being a credibly truthful person.
That whole blaming the victim thing Emma sometimes mentions?
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It looks like she has been lying for 6 months and these men have been kept in prison on the basis of her being a credibly truthful person.
Lying about what? The (alleged) attack, or the fact that she wrote something irrelevant to it on the internet?
Just to, you know, be clear.
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Okay, absolutely yes, we don't have all the facts by a very long shot. We do have some, though, and I have no reason to disbelieve those. In particular, it seems reasonable to take the prosecutor's statements at face value:
He said: "It is right to say that there is material in the chatlogs from the complainant who is prepared to entertain ideas of group sex with strangers, where to use her words 'her morals go out of the window'.
"This material does paint a wholly different light as far as this case is concerned. We take the view that it would not be appropriate to offer any evidence."
He said he was particularly concerned about one chatlog entry which referred to her prepared to have intercourse with six men from Ireland who wanted to travel to the woman's home.
Now, if that's what he's "particularly concerned" by, surely that's what led him to make the decision he did, and not something else he simply forgot to mention. So yes, let's get it clear Angus: is it not mentioning that she'd made these remarks about a group of men entirely unconnected to the case which has brought you to brand her a "liar"?
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Not beyond reasonable doubt. It looks like she has been lying for 6 months and these men have been kept in prison on the basis of her being a credibly truthful person.
Any competent defence would have used the online comments in evidence. But to say that the complainant "lied" in not disclosing a fantasy she had is absurd.
It strikes me that had she actually anticipated having sex with multiple men in this case, that would surely have been somehow reflected in the internet correspondence between the complainant and the man to whose home she went -- and that the defence would have presented correspondence to that effect, rather than some old comments with no connection to the case at hand.
As things stand, there appears to be no evidence that the complainant wished to have sex with anyone other than the single man with whom she made a date.
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And even if, as Emma said earlier, she wanted sex with multiple partners, what difference does that make? It sounds fairly simple to me - whether or not she implied she was up for it, whether or not they thought she was up for it, whether or not she was up for it when she got to where the 6 men were....all of that is irrelevant, IMHO, if she says NO at any stage of her interaction with any or all of the aforementioned people. Sure, some of these circumstances would make it difficult to prosecute but not impossible, surely? I don't know how law courts work in detail, but I do know that the CPS decides whether a case is worth trying or not. They obviously decided that this case was, so then why abandon it like this?
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Not beyond reasonable doubt. It looks like she has been lying for 6 months and these men have been kept in prison on the basis of her being a credibly truthful person.
Angus. Let's get out the finger puppets and walk through this again.
I've had extremely violent fantasies of torturing and murdering the drunk-driving douche bag who was responsible for the death of my foster sister.
If he's ever murdered (and I wouldn't weep a single crocodile tear if he was), I'm pretty sure I'd be able to supply a water-tight alibi, and wouldn't disclose ancient history I'm not actually terribly proud of and which is totally irrelevant to the question at hand.
I sure hope you wouldn't be on any jury sending me to prison for the rest of my life on the basis of what was running through the head of an angry, grieving teenager twenty years ago.
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3410,
Something that hasn't - I think - really been mentioned yet is the way that the judge's and the prosecutor's attitudes to group sex may have influenced this.
Now, (bear with me) If a man had been charged with something truly bizarre - say, setting fire to a horse and then dismembering it - I would think that previous online posts by him about his desire to set fire to and dismember a horse would have some relevance.
Personally, I don't think that group sex is that unusual of a thing - I've been there once or twice; it can be a groovy scene, man - but I'm aware that some people view it as extremely perverse.
Perhaps the judge and the prosecutor think that it is such an out-there thing that, in their minds, a group sex fantasy and a group rape is just too much of a coincidence.
I mean, if a man was charged with stealing a car and it later emerged that the owner of the car had previously voiced thoughts about possibly giving the car away, no one would suggest that his being dispossed of the vehicle was voluntary, would they?
I haven't expressed this very well, but you get my drift.
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He said he was particularly concerned about one chatlog entry which referred to her prepared to have intercourse with six men from Ireland who wanted to travel to the woman's home
For a while there I was beginning to suspect that the judge/prosecution developed their concerns about the credibility of the victim NOT because she was prepared to have intercourse with six men, but because they were from Ireland.
* drum hit *
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Tess's comments upthread speculating on the possible impact of sharing fantasies online implicit in this case came to mind when I read this story.
Interesting to note that a police officer specifically targeted in the Hummer-owning businessman's fantasy of running cyclists off the road says that if the businessman did hit a cyclist in future his online comments
wouldn’t help in court. The comments I’ve seen on the internet – it’s starting to wear thin
This story of course applies to a very different context and no crime is yet alleged. I do think however that it points to the way in which there isn't a settled social custom as to how the things we say online are read in light of what may or may not happen (or have happened).
I should also note I find myself far more at ease with the idea of someone fantasising online about group sex with a posse of Irishmen than someone fantasising online about running down cyclists on a hill road, although, as Emma might argue, this is perhaps a private matter of taste.
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Not surprisingly, I'd never read that part of the Crimes Act. Not only is rape described in a very limited way as explained above, but there are other curiosities.
The maximum penalty for incest is 10 years, which seems extreme (not withstanding whether incest is or is not a healthy form of relationship between two consenting adults). Bestiality, defined as "penetration" gets 7 years, while indecency with an animal gets 3.
As far as I can tell the parts of the Act written in 1986 or later are much more consistent with the nature of offenses as they are understood in contemporary New Zealand, as you would expect.
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I should also note I find myself far more at ease with the idea of someone fantasising online about group sex with a posse of Irishmen than someone fantasising online about running down cyclists on a hill road, although, as Emma might argue, this is perhaps a private matter of taste.
Well, one fantasy involves hurting, possibly killing, another person, and the other involves consensual sexual pleasure, so I think the difference is more than taste.
With the appropriate caveats from Craig's comment that fantasy does not necessarily indicate intention.
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I mean, if a man was charged with stealing a car and it later emerged that the owner of the car had previously voiced thoughts about possibly giving the car away, no one would suggest that his being dispossed of the vehicle was voluntary, would they?
I haven't expressed this very well, but you get my drift.
Indeed. I once read a blackly comic if someone who had his car stolen was treated like the complainant in a rape case:
"You have a history of owning expensive, late-model cars?"
"Well, yes..."
"You also frequently take these flashy cars out at night, to parts of town where other cars have been stolen before?"
"I'm not really seeing the point..."
"Answer the question please."
"Yes."
"Have you ever loan a car to a third party, or given a lift to someone you don't know particularly well?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. So, given your previous history, don't you think it was somewhat provocative to take your late model BMW to a neighbourhood with a history of car thefts?
As you've admitted that you've let strangers in your car before, why should we believe that you didn't hand the keys over to my client and you're just LYING to the court?"
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Well, one fantasy involves hurting, possibly killing, another person, and the other involves consensual sexual pleasure, so I think the difference is more than taste.
I think that's the key thing there. The second involves an active invitation of consent in an activity involving yourself, the second involves acts against others entirely without their consent.
Unfortunately, what seems to have happened is that the court has conflated consensual group sex with non-consensual gang-rape.
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With the appropriate caveats from Craig's comment that fantasy does not necessarily indicate intention.
Indeed; the online responses I have read to the businessman-with-a-Hummer's quotes have mostly been of the "what a dick" kind, as opposed to the policeman's implication that if he does have an accident involving a cyclist in future, one cannot help but infer intention.
In the case of the complainant whose case is the subject of this thread, I think we would be foolish even to infer intentionality about the Irish ( pace stephen clover).
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I think we would be foolish even to infer intentionality about the Irish ( pace stephen clover).
Dude, have you seen Aidan Turner? And he doesn't sparkle.
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Alas Emma, I am at present hormonally impaired; my fantasies this trimester mostly cohere around someone replacing the rotting front-porch post and then bringing me a dish of savoury carbohydrates and some fruit while I'm at work. Neither of these things are metaphors. It may be that I have to outsource my lascivious gaze in the meantime. I rely on you to defend its existence to the internet.
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Dude, have you seen Aidan Turner? And he doesn't sparkle.
Whoah.. I have now! *fans*
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