Allegations of Sexual
Abuse |
|
|
|
Baroness Scotland says figures
relating to alleged rape victims Four out of five women who claim
to have been rape victims had been drinking before they were attacked, a Home
Office minister said. But Baroness Scotland said that,
despite of this fact, rape is "never the fault" of the woman who
suffers it. Police have estimated a third of
alleged rape victims have been drinking. But Baroness Scotland told a House
of Lords debate that she had seen research suggesting a figure of 81 per
cent. She added: "Evidence suggests
that alcohol has become a major factor in facilitating rape and sexual
assault." Tory former Home Secretary Lord
Waddington said it should me made "clear to girls that they have a
responsibility not to put themselves unnecessarily at risk by excessive
drinking." But Lady Scotland told him:
"We have campaigned in relation to all young people and how to keep
themselves safe but rape is never the fault of the woman who suffers
it." Her comments come amid Government
plans to change the law on consent by drunken women. The legal definition of consent
could be rewritten to say that women who are drunk could not have agreed to
make love, so has effectively been raped. It raises the possibility that
even if a woman did say yes to sex, a jury could decide she was too
inebriated to give meaningful consent. At present, women are deemed
capable of consenting to intercourse as long as they are not so drunk that
they are unconscious. But ministers are concerned that
thousands of cases fail to reach the courts because victims have consumed
alcohol. In many cases, police advise them
to drop the complaint because they stand little chance of being believed in
court. Solicitor General Mike O'Brien
said the law must be changed to make it easier to jail rapists who
deliberately get their victims drunk. Fewer than six per cent of rape
allegations end in successful convictions. Earlier this year, a judge threw
out a case in which the alleged victim was too drunk to remember what
happened. Another trial collapsed when a
student from Aberystwyth University admitted she had been so drunk she could
not remember if she had refused or given consent for sex. |