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Evening Post
Tuesday January 15, 2002
Rape tales breed police suspicion
False rape complaints breed suspicion among police,
an experienced investigator says.
The officer - whom The Evening Post agreed not to
name - said police began suspecting sex crime victims were lying after they
encountered false complainants. His comments follow the latest false
complaint in the region, with a 16-year-old girl claiming she was abducted
from Ascot Park by three men and sexually
assaulted. The teenager has been referred to Youth Aid.
The source said the suspicious mindset formed by
police after false complaints was a problem, but understandable. "It's
only natural."
False complaints - "you do get far too many of
them, I think" - were also frustrating for investigators.
Police were often reluctant to charge offenders
with making false complaints, because the lies might have stemmed from
personal problems. A court procedure often wasn't a solution to those
problems.
While the motive might be clear and simple with a
false burglary complaint - for financial gain - it was often more complex
with sex crimes. Possible motives were gaining attention, problems at home or
a safe way out of an unfaithful liaison.
There was a concern, however, that false complaints
might increase after publicity about ACC payouts for sex crime victims.
Another fear, in the event of a false complaint,
was substandard efforts in solving actual crimes because resources were tied
up probing the lie.
During a spate of sex crimes in Wellington last year, police were
investigating a reported rape in Lukes
Lane. The public was already alarmed at the
string of earlier attacks and a stretched police CIB were facing pressure to
solve the crimes.
The Lukes
Lane complainant was later charged with making a
false complaint.
Another case which attracted a huge response from
police was the 1997 report of a 10-year-old girl being abducted while on her
way to feed ducks in Paraparaumu. She escaped and police began a massive
manhunt.
There was an outpouring of information from a
concerned public and extra officers were called into the investigation
because police deemed the case so serious, it had the potential to end in
homicide.
Two days later the girl's parents apologised for
their daughter's lies.
Despite the concerns about false complaints, the
police source said victims shouldn't shy away from contacting police. All reports
would be investigated fully.
A thesis by Victoria University
criminologist Dr Jan Jordan - True `Lies' And False `Truths': Women, Rape And
The Police - found doubts about rape complainants' credibility dominated
police inquiries.
She told The Post some police wrongly believed that
up to 50 percent of complaints were false. Research in the United States held the level of
false complaints at between 2 and 5 per cent. Furthermore, some genuine
victims had been found to have lied - or retracted their complaints - as a
reaction to severe grilling by suspicious police. There was a need for
specialist sex crime investigators with a knowledge of victim psychology.
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