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The Press
January 22, 2002
Rape: what motivates a false complaint?
by Sarah Priestwood
Rape is a sickening crime that can blight the victim's life. Sarah Priestwood
asks why any woman would want to make it up.
The new year in Porirua began with a sickening headline. A 16-year-old girl,
babysitting her two brothers at a Porirua park, had been abducted,
blindfolded, and gang- raped. Public outrage put pressure on the police to
make a hasty arrest.
Last week an unexpected twist occurred. The police now believe the alleged
kidnapping and rape never happened and that the girl fabricated the story.
Rape is an angry word with dangerous consequences. Although most women who
report rape are telling the truth, a small minority go to the police with
stories filled with sexual deceit. Their motivation can be anything from
revenge to a reaction against childhood sexual abuse.
A victim who makes a false rape complaint wants to tell you a story, and she
wants to make sure you believe her, says Detective Sergeant Dave Henwood, of
the Criminal Profiling Unit, who analyses hundreds of interview tapes from
sex offenders and victims in an effort to work out who is telling the truth.
The South Auckland-based unit was launched after the arrests of notorious
serial rapists Joseph Thompson, who has 61 sexual violation convictions, and
Malcolm Rewa, who attacked 24 women between 1987 and 1996.
Mr Henwood says there are "red flags" that indicate when a women is
making a false complaint, but he is reluctant to mention details for fear of
igniting the problem.
"When a woman gives you a false statement, she generally doesn't know
what it's like to be raped, and she gives you a version of how she thinks a
rapist is going to behave," he says.
Rapists generally fall into different categories, although the women will
describe a certain type that crosses a variety of the subgroups, he says.
They give few details of the actual assault, but the background to the attack
is very detailed, because this is the part of the story based on truth.
Their motivation can range from seeking sympathy from their boyfriends,
revenge, explaining a pregnancy, or why
they were late for work.
Defining a false complaint is a grey area. A woman can fabricate a story, or
will frequently believe she really was raped, even when the facts prove
otherwise.
Alcohol can play a key role in distorting the truth.
"It's never clear-cut," says Mr Henwood. "In many cases a
woman might believe she has been raped, but she was too drunk to remember the
circumstances."
Earlier last year police charged a Mount
Victoria stripper with making a
false complaint after she claimed she was sexually assaulted in Lukes Lane, in Wellington.
Detective Sergeant Steve Vaughan, the Wellington CIB boss who headed the Lukes Lane
inquiry, says it is always disappointing when a complainant is found to be
concealing the truth.
"It's difficult when you get to a point in an inquiry and you realise
that there's a high probability that it hasn't happened, but you're still
subjected to a lot of pressure from within police, the media, the victim, and
the community to get a result."
The attitude of the police has greatly altered towards rape victims since the
1970s, when they were often viewed with suspicion and mistrust.
"All rape complaints are taken very seriously until proven
otherwise," says Detective Sergeant Vaughan.
"We don't stand in judgment, and we also don't want to discourage people
from making complaints."
Police headquarters do not keep figures on the number of false rape
complaints made each year, but it is extremely rare for anyone to be charged.
Early last week the Tauranga District Court was told how a woman lied to the
police that she had been raped, and then made a false ACC claim.
Under new law changes, people who claim to have been sexually abused can
receive ACC payouts without having to complain to the police.
Campaigners against false allegations of sexual abuse are fearful that the
changes, which take effect from April 1, could lead to an increase in ACC
claims.
Rape-survivor support groups dispute this view. Wellington's Sexual Abuse Help Foundation
manager, Marian Kleist, says false complaints are often over-reported in the
media, deterring survivors from coming forwards in case they are not
believed.
However, the failure to acknowledge false rape complaints is an insult to
women who have genuinely been sexually abused, says Felicity Goodyear-Smith,
former head of the now disbanded organisation Casualties of Sexual
Allegations.
She has attracted much criticism for her controversial views on rape and
false allegations. "If we don't acknowledge that, along with real rape,
there are false allegations, it discredits the whole issue and does a
disservice to the genuine cases."
Dr Goodyear-Smith helped to set up the Auckland
rape support group Help in the 1980s, after working as a police doctor.
"We need to have a presumption of innocent until proven guilty, because
both the victim and offender must be treated with respect. The presumption of
guilt in police investigation introduces a bias from the outset."
She takes a hard line against women who make false complaints, and believes
the penalty should be comparable with sending an innocent man to prison.
"If you are prepared to do that to someone else, you should have to live
with the consequences. If we actually had a law with teeth, it would reduce
the number of false allegations."
Victoria University lecturer Jan Jordan, who
has studied the experiences of rape victims and the police, says the issue
needs to be put into context.
"We have an over-inflated perception of the number of false complaints
compared to what the reality is."
Women treat rape seriously, and do not use the word lightly, she says. When
they do make a false complaint, there may be underlying problems regarding
unresolved historical abuse, or a previous rape, and they are seldom likely
to be motivated by spite or revenge.
"An elaborate hoax is very rare, and usually leans towards underlying
problems and a cry for help."
In the 1980s a woman raped by Rewa was turned away by police who considered
her complaint to be false. Rewa went on to rape more than 20 women.
"It still angers me that when David Dougherty's conviction was
overturned, everyone was quick to feel sorry for him," says Ms Jordan.
"But what about the woman in the Malcolm Rewa case who wasn't believed
and was ignored for so long? We don't feel sorry for the victims whose
attacker is never prosecuted or convicted."
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