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Manchester Police admit they don’t prosecute women who make false rape allegations

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Detectives at Greater Manchester Police (GMP) will publicly admit that the force takes a soft approach on women who make false allegation of rape against men, on a BBC documentary to be broadcast this evening, says a report in The Guardian.

According to Detective Superintendant Jon Chadwick, who has been running GMP’s serious sexual offences unit (SSOU) since it opened in 2012, dozens of reports received by GMP turn out to be fabricated, but unlike other forces it has never prosecuted a woman for making a false allegation of rape.

GMP dealt with 1,802 rape cases in the past year and estimates that less than 3% (<54) were thought to be fabricated.

According to DCI Colin Larkin, a new “victim-focussed” approach taken by the SSOU can be “massively frustrating” when officers know that the person making the allegation is lying.

Larkin told the BBC: “We do get people making up allegations because they want to get their own back, for whatever reason. If A and B are courting and A has an affair with C, sometimes B will say that A has raped her … It’s not massively common but it isn’t uncommon either.”

Reported rapes on the rise 

The upside of the “victim-focussed” approach is that GMP has seen a significant increase in the numbers of genuine victims who feel able to come forward. GMP recorded 737 rapes in 2011-2012, a figure that has more than doubled to 1,649 in just three years, with 40% of those reports being “historic”, meaning the alleged incident happened more than a year ago.

It isn’t just female victims who are more likely to come forward either. The number of men reporting rape more than doubled in the past 12 months, from 35 incidents to 84 incidents between April 2014 and April 2015. GMP suspect that a large number of crimes against men go unreported and are working with local charity, Survivors Manchester, to help more male victims to break the silence.

But while a victim-focussed approach which recognises that men and boys are victims of rape too is laudable, taking a soft approach on women who make false allegations of rape sends a very strong message that the law takes a softer line on female perpetrators and a harder line on male victims.

GMP admits that it is actively prosecuting a higher proportion of men accused of rape than other forces in the UK, while at the same time taking a softer approach to women who make false allegations. According to The Guardian, GMP has handed out “the odd fixed-penalty fine for wasting police time” and Chadwick’s view is that it is better not to prosecute because  “those making false reports have some sort of vulnerability”.

A crime against men and boys 

But making a false allegation is not just a crime against the police, it is also a crime against men and boys who are uniquely vulnerable to the impact of false allegations, which in extreme cases can lead to suicide and murder.

False allegations are a uniquely gendered crime with 92% of perpetrators in the UK being female and 98% of victims being male, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

While conflicting statistics on the scale of the problem are hotly contested on the battleground of gender politics, we should be in no doubt that false allegations happen and are overwhelmingly directed at men by women.

Estimates of the proportion of allegations of rape that are false range from 0.6%, a statistic favoured by some feminists keen to downplay the problem, to the much higher 50% figure favoured by some anti-feminists keen to grab hold of any statistic that puts women in the worst possible light.

More moderate observers agree that a figure of around 10% could be feasible. These include Fogg (2%-10%); Full Fact(8%-11%) and Hawkes (8% to 12%).

GMP deserves credit, but taking a proactive approach to helping more women and men who have been raped to get justice—but this shouldn’t come at the expense of men who have been wrongly accused of rape by women.

How about being tough on rape and tough of false allegations of rape?

—Picture Credit: Stock Monkeys

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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  • CitymanMichael

    The Home Office has a lot to answer for in relation to False Accusations of Rape. A brief 7 listed below.

    1. Home office counting rules – 19C – Rape of a female over 16 – Classification. The text below –

    Allegations of rape which come via third parties or from Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs). A report of rape must be recorded as a crime in the following instances: · The victim provides personal details and seeks a police investigation; or · The victim (whether anonymous or not) provides details of the allegation to be passed to the police but decides not to pursue the allegation; or · The victim undergoes a forensic examination with samples submitted to the police for analysis (whether or not personal details are passed to the police).

    My question relates to the thinking behind classifying a crime in the circumstances of an alleged victim providing details to be passed to police but deciding not to pursue the allegation. Would most people not think, like I do, that this is open to abuse by centres which rely for their funding on lots of recorded rapes?

    2. Which recording processes and computer programmes do various police forces use. Actually my question is more along the lines of why do the 43 forces in England and Wales not seem to use the same processes and/or computer programmes?

    3. Why do different forces provide differing “formats” of data? This makes comparing like for like data almost impossible.
    4. Why do some forces have a statistic on false accusations and others do not?

    5. Why do some forces have a statistic “undetected due to insufficient evidence” whilst most do not?

    6. How can it be that years 2009 through 2012 North Wales recorded 88 false accusations of a total of 621 (14.2%) whilst South Yorkshire recorded 12 from a total of 548 (2.2%)? These are way out of kilter of statistical differences.

    7. Why do false accusations of rape not seem to be taken more seriously by firstly recording them in a clear fashion which makes sense?

    It is my view that police forces should classify rape reports/crimes as (a) proven false {by evidence or admission} – (b) Believed by police to not have occurred or consentual – (c) Not enough evidence to proceed – (d) Prosecuted.

  • Groan

    It is not surprising that false accusers are treated leniently for their crime if female . Decades of research ( paradoxically kicked off by feminists ) has demonstrated the very different treatment by gender in the criminal justice system. However mixed up, messed up or immature males are usually concieved as fully culpable for their actions while females are too fragile to be so. Of course this is sexist and was challenged by feminists, this challenge has faded over the years and I doubt the reported concern about such trivialisation of such offences will find support .

    • gwallan

      “paradoxically kicked off by feminists”

      However, if I recall correctly, they did this only because they were insisting that women were being treated more harshly in those systems.

      • Groan

        Indeed there were broadly two hypotheses . a. That women were considered more aberrant of social norms and would be more harshly treated as a deterrent. B. That women would be considered “mad” and be medicated. In a sense b. proved to be supported by the evidence as all through the system women are indeed likely to be re-directed to social/medical care(bad if one believes that this is a form of social control but good in terms of avoiding punishment). Of course a. proved completely false and in the more honest researchers led to lines of inquiry into this “benign” sexism. Needless to say the work of the latter never makes it into popular debate! So it is entirely to be expected that GMP will see such females as “vulnerable” .and the CPS deem it not in the public interest to prosecute. Of course some of those vulnerabilities are precisely the sorts of factors that will give a likelihood of repeated accusations.. . . . .

  • Zimba Zumba

    This story exposes a lot about the culture that has developed in the CP and police in this area, and the UK in general. Clearly promotion is dependent on being inline with the ideological dogma. Fixed fixed-penalty fines for false rape accusations is obscene. The fact they feel they can talk openly in this manner is a testament to how bad things have become.

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  • Jens – alt er på Twitter

    Nobody has ever argued that we shouldn’t prosecute people making false insurance claims because “they have issues” or “it would discourage people from making insurance claims”.

    What’s the historical gender makeup of people making insurance claims again?

  • Ciaran Goggins

    Not only does one see the police pursuing false rape claims but also a lack of punitive measures regarding multiple false rape allegations. Current legislation whereby anonymity is not given to defendants is contrary to ECHR law.

  • David Mortimer
  • rabbitaway

    Call it the Savile effect. Someone says you assaulted them, GMP believes them automatically. They then look for more ‘victims’ as if quantity of claims equals guilt ! Read my blog Justice For Jimmy Savile because if it can happen to him, it can happen to you !

  • dougpatton

    ALL police & CPS who fail ‘the public interest’ by NOT prosecuting PROVEN False Accusers, should themselves be severely prosecuted and CAGED for ‘Dereliction Of Duty’ etc – throw the book at ’em!
    Meanwhile, many years ago, as an aMused pubertal boy with my aMused proactive pubertal cousin attempting penil-vaginal intercourse, she suddenly, all unasked, stuck her bony finger in my ass to ‘HELP’ the process. Wow! Talk about ‘InsideBOY’ did I jump?! I’ve never been able to forget being R-A-P-E-D by a well meaning child. And, though I
    don’t want her retrospectively prosecuted like some historic aBusers, or THOUSANDS of VILE False Accusers, please can I just claim BIG compo and subscribe to longterm FREE counselling. To HELP the overall BIG bent aBuse-biz for careers, compo, ratings & profit always deviously masked as so called ‘Public Protection’? Remember the recent 1980s BIG fake Satanic Abuse mass panics with THOUSANDS in families and friends including children, DESTROYED by neo-Cromwellian Witch Hunts in so called ‘Modern Britain’?

  • Anders Eriksen

    As long as GMP keeps handing out jail-free-tickets to an exclusive class of offenders, then the credit for whatever success they may have is of zero value!

  • http://counterfem2.blogspot.com fidelbogen

    I have a problem with the following phrase which appeared in the article, above:

    “..anti-feminists keen to grab hold of any statistic that puts women in the worst possible light.”

    This makes it sound like “anti-feminists” are “anti-woman”.

    And that. . . is a fallacy which the feminists themselves try to promote every chance they get.

    I’m sure that this little error was a slip-up, due to hasty writing, and nothing more. I’m sure that the “Inside Man” website doesn’t knowingly seek to promote such a standpoint. Am I right?

    • insideMAN

      Thanks for your comment Fidelbogen

      You are right, this article is not promoting the standpoint that “anti-feminists” are “anti-women”.

      The article is primarily highlighting the fact that a UK police force has acknowledged that it doesn’t prosecute women for making false rape allegations.

      In the section on the prevalence of false rape allegations I am putting forward the view that where there is a broad range of statistics to choose from “some anti-feminists” will favour statistics that put women in the worst possible light (which at the same time puts men in the best possible light), just as some feminists will favour statistics that put men in the worst possible light (which at the same time puts women in the best possible light),

      This is a very common tendency in any advocacy movement and not unique to feminism or anti-feminism.

      Of course some anti-feminists will agree that feminists do that but say that anti-feminists never do.

      And some feminists will agree that anti-feminists do that but say that feminists never do.

      I don’t profess to know what the correct statistics for false rape allegations just that some feminists claim it is less than 1% and some anti-feminists claim it is 50% or more.

      All of our readers are free to come to their own conclusions which will most be informed, to a greater or lesser extent, by their own gender politics.

      Best Wishes

      Glen Poole
      insideMAN