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In Britain, Rape Cases Seldom Result in a Conviction
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Lisa Longstaff, spokeswoman for the London-based group Women Against Rape, said rape cases are "not a priority" for busy police and prosecutors and, as a result, "so few rapists get locked up that those who do feel unlucky rather than guilty."
Even some cases that do end in a guilty verdict stir outrage. Last year, a judge sentenced a 24-year-old man to two years in prison for having sex with a 10-year-old after concluding that the girl had "dressed provocatively."
Patricia Scotland, England's first female attorney general since the job was created in the 15th century, appealed that sentence. It was increased to four years.
Longstaff and others said that despite advances toward equality, sex crimes run up against a persistent societal bias -- pronounced in the male-dominated police and judicial system -- that women have only themselves to blame.
Julie Bindel, a feminist activist and writer, said there has been a huge cultural shift since the 1950s and 1960s toward acceptance that unmarried women can have casual sex.
But, she said, "women are allowed that bit more freedom as long as men behave. When men choose not to, it comes right back at women: 'What did you do to stop him? What was it about you that he chose you to rape?' "
A Claim of Mixed Signals
In a TV ad paid for by the police of Manchester, England, that began airing this month, a young man and woman are enjoying a pleasant evening, at first.
But after they drink alcohol, dance and kiss, the man leads the woman out of the nightclub, yanks her pants down and forces her to have sex against a wall as she cries, "No. No. . . . Get off of me."
In the ad, the man is locked up. In real life, according to dozens of interviews with victims and experts, this is exactly the kind of case that ends in an acquittal, if it goes to court at all.
Acquittals are often won on the "mucky sex" defense -- that the man got mixed signals from the woman and what resulted really wasn't rape.
Danielle West, 30, who reported to police that she was raped after a boozy office Christmas party in December 2006, said police seemed uninterested in her case once she said she had been drinking heavily.
West, an American who manages a team of Web analysts in London, turned visibly upset as she recounted her story in a quiet corner of a coffee shop. She said police, rather than giving her the benefit of the doubt, seemed "hostile" and intent on trying to "trip me up."
