Wednesday 22 July 2009

New Definition Of ‘Rare’….

..actually now means ‘pretty frequent’:
A mother was jailed for two years yesterday for crying rape against a man she met on a dating website.

Jennifer Day, 34, who made the false allegation against former boyfriend Andrew Saxby after a row, was told by the judge that she had undermined efforts to treat genuine rape victims fairly and sympathetically.

The court also heard that Mr Saxby was subjected to 'degrading and upsetting' examinations while being held by police for ten hours.
At last, a judge prepared to tell it like it is, and to not be swayed by calls for leniency.

And yet again, this one turns out to have had form for false claims:
During the trial, the court heard how Day had a history of making up stories. The jury was told that while working at Royal London Hospital in East London as a nurse, she suffered stress-related hair loss and led her colleagues to believe it was cancer.
Nice lady, eh…?

Over at Tim Worstall's, johnb is playing possum...

2 comments:

Dr Melvin T Gray said...

Yes Julia, that two years is the gross tariff.
Corrected to British Waiver Board Standards, it may amount to one get out of jail free card. Alternatively, the green form Jackpot trail is always open for a quick retrial and acquittal compensation.

Mike said...

The poor man who was the primary victim in this case quite magnanimously said – he was unsure of the appropriateness of punishment and prison for the woman concerned but an apology would have been nice.
The wider victims of course are her family, real rape victims, and the authorities that we pay for in respect of their costs however they did in this case eventually pursue and catch a criminal.
I am unsure if as a victim of crime he will qualify for criminal compensation? Most cases like this end up with significant and far reaching loss for the victim. He will certainly have felt and probably feel quite alone and concerned in so many ways about his future. The official record of this experience will limit things from gaining credit and insurance to applying for work. His trust in people will be shot, relationships with those closest to him will suffer.
So much comment on this has focused on rape victims and whether women are willing and able to do this. We, both men and women, for all concerned need to address some simple and obvious issues:

Anonymity for all in these cases unit and if a guilty conviction is arrived at.
Compensation and support for the primary victim of these crimes.
Appropriate punishment and support as appropriate for those who commit it.
Tackling the reasons why women are encouraged to do this.

We can rubber-neck all we like at her and sympathise with real rape victims but unless something is done now we are all responsible for not changing a system that has no choice but to severely damage the society it is there to protect.