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The Dominion
February 18, 1997
Complaints of rape
Letter
to the Editor
by F. Goodyear-Smith, Albany
Over the past decade, when dealing with rape complaints it has become police
policy to treat all cases as genuine.
Police are instructed not to be sceptical, they should believe the
complainant and not challenge her evidence by trying to find inconsistencies
or gaps in it, because querying what she says may be psychologically damaging
to her.
Police are taught that their role is to support the complainant (called the
victim, not the complainant or alleged victim, even when the initial
complaint is being discussed).
Cosa (Casualties of Sexual Allegations) daily sees the price of such a policy
- men falsely accused, charged and sometimes convicted of sexual crimes in
the absence of any police scepticism or objective investigation into the
allegations.
A practice of implicitly believing the victim means an effective presumption
of guilt. The stories of Nick Wills, Alan Collier and Alan Rush (The
Dominion, February 6 and 7) exemplify the suffering and destruction wreaked
in the lives of hundreds of New
Zealand families from this misguided
policy.
Men and women have equal capacity for both good and evil. Some men rape, but
some women cry rape when it has not happened. Deliberate false allegations
are sometimes made for revenge or for monetary gain.
Some teenagers knowingly make false allegations to "get back at"
overly strict parents or those who have scorned their sexual advances.
Most false allegations, however, are not intentional lies, but result from
women and children wrongly coming to believe that they have been victims of
sexual attacks.
Rape allegations should always be taken seriously. All complaints should be
treated with compassion and respect. All those accused should be treated in
the same manner.
The police should be sceptical: they should neither believe nor disbelieve
the complainant but ask "What is the evidence?" and conduct an
impartial investigation.
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