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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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Is it time to give men accused of sexual offences anonymity?

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MP Mark Pritchard has called a review of the law on anonymity for people accused of rape after police dropped an inquiry into allegations against him, writes Glen Poole.

“To be falsely accused of anything is an awful thing,” he said. “The law on anonymity does need to be reviewed, and fairness does need to play a far greater role in these cases.”

His calls were backed by Nigel Evans MP, the former deputy speaker who was cleared of rape allegations at trial last year. He said the law needed to be reformed “as a matter of urgency” to spare suspects “the full glare of publicity….there is scant regard given to the innocent person accused”.

False allegations are a uniquely gendered crime. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, 92% of people suspected of false allegations of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence are women and the majority of victims are male.

So how long have men been denied the right to anonymity in rape trials?

According to the website Full Fact, complainants in rape cases have been entitled to anonymity in the media since the Sexual Offences Act 1976. The same Act extended this to defendants, but since the Criminal Justice Act 1988, defendants have had no statutory right to anonymity in rape cases.

In 2003 the House of Lords and the Home Affairs Committee proposed bringing back anonymity for defendants, but the Commons rejected the plans and the law remained unchanged following the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

The Coalition Agreement in 2010 also proposed extending anonymity in rape cases to defendants. But after the Ministry of Justice found a dearth of evidence on the prevalence of false rape accusations, the plans were shelved.

Estimates of the proportion of allegations of rape that are false range from 0.6%, a statistic favoured by some femininsts 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.

One in ten rape allegations could be false

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%).

If one in ten of the 16,000 complaints for rape the police receive each year are false, then more than 30 men a week are being subjected to false allegations.

That’s more than 30 male victims a week who are being publicly named and shamed while their false accusers can hide behind the anonymity of being a “victim”.

There is only one convincing argument I have heard against anonymity for men accused of rape and that is that naming them can help encourage more victims coming forward.

With just a little imagination, it is not beyond the wit of legislators to make allowances were there is a genuine case for lifting reporting restrictions, so long as this is the exception and not the rule. As Ally Fogg argued after the acquittal of  Coronation Street actor Michael Le Vell in 2013:

“I see no reason why there couldn’t be an assumption of anonymity which could be lifted at any time by the presiding judge, if investigators plead that it offers significant prospects of helping the case.”

Now that two MPs have personal experience of being denied a right to anonymity when accused of rape,  maybe we’ll see a renewed political campaign to change the law for the benefit of all men. After all, men of every background are potentially at risk of being falsely accused of  rape and sexual abuse.

 —Photo Credit: Flickr/Ben Sutherland

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Why do women make false rape allegations?

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There has been a spate of media reports about women who make false allegations of rape in recent months, the most recent of which involved a woman from Grimsby who forged letters from the Deputy Prime Minister to try and avoid prosecution.

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.

Unfortunately for male victims, there are many people who struggle to believe that any women would lie about being raped. Earlier this year, one male victim of a false allegation told his local newspaper in Sussex, “my girlfriend initially believed it, she didn’t think another woman would make it up.”

The impact that a false allegation of rape can have is devastating and at times fatal. Last year a 16 year old boy from Cheshire killed himself after he was falsely accused of raping a girl by an older boy. In a separate case an 18 year old boy from Essex was beaten to death by a gang including a 21 year old woman whose younger sister falsely accused him of rape.

Opposition from the women’s movement

In some quarters of the women’s movement there is fierce opposition to the “fiction that women lie about rape” notably from the campaign group Women Against Rape who claim that prosecuting women who “cry rape” puts real victims off reporting. The group regularly calls for the money spent prosecuting women who make false allegations to be spent on prosecuting men accused of rape instead.

The official narrative on false rape allegations, from both the Government and the women’s sector, is that such cases are very rare. The evidence provided to support this claim is that there were just 35 prosecutions of false allegations of rape during a 17 month period in 2011 to 2012 compared to 5,651 prosecutions for rape. This accounts for just 0.6% of all rape and false rape prosecutions, when women’s charities estimate that the actual proportion of false allegations is five times higher at 3% (and men’s advocates claim the actual figure is higher still).

What’s missing from mainstream conversations about the significantly gendered crime of women making false allegations of rape against men, is any attempt to understand what motivates the women who make such claims. As insideMAN is committed to pioneering conversations about men’s experiences, we thought we’d try to kick start a discussion on the issue by asking  this question: “why do women cry rape?”

So far we’ve undertaken a brief review of recent media reports which suggests there are four common reasons why women “cry rape”:

1. To hide infidelity 

Some false rape allegations are made by women in long-term relationships who have consensual sex with another man and then “cry rape” to cover up their infidelity. Last year, Gaynor Cook, from  Northamptonshire was sent to jail 10 years after making a false rape allegation in 2003 to cover up an affair she had with an unidentified taxi driver.

The man was found 8 years later, when he provided a DNA sample for an unrelated and minor offence and put on trial with Cook’s support. But when the truth emerged she was charged and convicted.

Other women who appear to have alleged rape to cover up infidelity include the Scottish Ann Summers’ rep who was in a relationship, arranged to have sex with another man, “cried rape” and then admitted to police she had made it up; and a pair of friends  from Southampton who had a consensual threesome and then “cried rape” because they both had long-term boyfriends.

2. To excuse or cover up promiscuity 

Some women who “cry rape” after taking part in consensual sex don’t do so because they are in a relationship, but to avoid taking responsibility for “promiscuous” behaviour. One such woman was Welsh mother of four, Emma Jones, who falsely claimed she had been raped because she thought her dad would be angry with her for coming home late. Two different men were arrested and subjected to intimate examinations before Jones’ lies were uncovered and she admitted that she had in fact had consensual sex with one of the men.

3. To Get Revenge

Many women who make false allegations of rape appear to be motivated by thoughts of revenge. This was certainly the thinking of Lisha Tait, who “cried rape” when she was snubbed in a nightclub by a former lover in Northern Ireland. She later admitted to the police that she had made the story up “on the basis that the man had given her the cold shoulder”.

Another woman whose false rape claims appear to be motivated by revenge is Emily Pike, who “cried rape” after having consensual sex in a Premier Inn in Bristol with a dating partner she met on the internet. The court was told that the man crept away afterwards because Pike didn’t resemble her dating profile and she angrily took her revenge by falsely claiming that s raped her. Pike had 15 previous convictions including an earlier false rape claim.

While false rape claims are often made after consensual sex, sometimes women will “cry rape” in cases when there has been no sexual contact. One such woman is Emma Saxon from Sheffield who claimed a man she was dating had raped her on an evening when he had failed to turn up for a liaison with her. It was the second time Saxon had been convicted of making a false allegation of rape.

4. To Garner Sympathy

Another motivating factor for women who “cry rape” is to garner sympathy. One recent example is the case of Rhiannon Brooker, a trainee lawyer from Bristol. Media reports suggest that Brooker falsely claimed her boyfriend repeatedly raped and assaulted her in the hope that she would be excused from taking her Bar exams. Another woman who “cried rape” to garner sympathy was Linsey Attridge from Aberdeen who randomly picked two men off Facebook to accuse in an attempt to win sympathy off her boyfriend, in the hope it would save their relationship.

Tell us what you think

This list is far from exhaustive but provides some insights into the minds of women who make false allegations of rape against men. We’re open to hearing other theories, particularly those based on evidence or experience, so if you have something to contribute on this subject then please share your thoughts in the comments section of this article.

—Photo Credit: flickr/familymwr

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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