A taxi driver falsely accused of rape could receive a five-figure compensation payout after winning a landmark victory.And like all victims of crime, Mr Bishop thought that he’d qualify for compensation.
Clive Bishop, 49, says his life was ruined after a drunken 17-year-old passenger claimed he attacked her.
Kirsty Palmer later admitted she made up the allegations and was jailed for ten months for perverting the course of justice.
But he was wrong:
When he applied for compensation, Mr Bishop described how months of living under a cloud of 'slurs and lies' had caused him enormous suffering.So he decided not to take it lying down, and has now won his case on appeal:
But the foster carer was twice refused a payout by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority on the grounds he had not come to physical harm.
That ruling has now been overturned on appeal - the first time the authority has agreed to compensate for the mental trauma of a false criminal accusation.Now, I don’t begrudge him the money. And he undoubtedly went for the criminal compensation scheme because a private prosecution wouldn’t have netted him any money, the criminal in question being a 17 year old chav.
It is not known exactly how much he will receive but his lawyers estimate it could be up to £10,000.
But I’d like to see the government looking at some ways to ensure that in cases like these, the future earnings of the criminal were attached in some way, in order to pay back as much of this claim as possible into the public purse.
It’s the only way they will ever learn the lesson that actions have real consequences. At least, those other than a 10 month (Hah! Bet she doesn’t serve that!) holiday at taxpayer’s expense…
I just want men accused of rape to remain anon until the trial is over.
ReplyDeleteI think this naming business is appalling when one side is protected.
Yeah, actually, I can't see why this was ever agreed in the first place, since it immediately puts both parties on an unequal footing.
ReplyDeleteThose who argue that 'other women won't come forward if the man isn't named' betray their desire to use rape trials as a fishing expedition.
I can't see why this was ever agreed in the first place,Feeling my age here, but it was logical at the time. First, you have to accept that it wasn't generally acceptable for women to have sex outside of marriage until the late 1970s. They were always on an unequal footing. The aim was to try to equalize the rape complainant with any other complainant.
ReplyDeleteThe word 'slag' still has a sting, depending on who it is applied to, and such an accusation can still be used to discredit someone, by suggesting that if she generally consents to sex with a variety of partners, she is more likely to have done so in the case at trial.
It is debatable either way; if someone is normally capable of having consenting sex with a person, why are they running to law this time?
Rape (as you know, but let's rebuild the argument) hinges on the issue of consent. If consent is present, it means there is no criminal act at all.
If a complainant fails to make the prosecution case two things follow:
i) there was no sex at all and they have made a false accusation, which puts them at risk of their own prosecution (unlike almost every other complainant) and may damage their standing in the community.
ii) there was sex, but they agreed to it and this of itself may damage their standing in the community. If they were unmarried, they are a slag, and if they are married they are covering up adultery.
Sadly, even if they establish the prosecution case, their standing in the community may be damaged simply because to have been raped is, of itself, held to be a disgrace. Sorry, but it just is. It shouldn't be, but it is. You just have to accept that not everywhere is nice polite society.
In an effort to get some of this sorted, the law allowed the equivalent of a blogmask for complainants. What couldn't have been predicted at that point was that attitudes to people merely accused of rape would change unpredictably.
Up to the late 1970s, common wisdom was quite relaxed about accusations and tended to wait until the verdict was in. To have been aquitted of rape was the end of it; it couldn't be used to have your children off you on a separate civil balance-of-probabilities in the the family courts. It couldn't be used to refuse you a job as, say, a school caretaker. It was widely felt that some women had sex but then screamed rape either to try to get back at someone who refused to hang around, or who didn't want to be known as 'easy'.
Right after the Soham murders attitudes went rock-hard. The fact that Huntley has never had a previous case established against him (which was weedy of the CPS and police) didn't prevent millions of people - some of whom should have known better - from arguing that 'this could all have been prevented if accusations had been acted upon'. (No, not that one, it was a complete outlier case.)
Mrs Plato's suggestion is the sensible one now, but with the proviso that we don't get another diabolical cods-up like the recent Baby P trial. There is a good reason for naming a convicted party, and that is so that nobody else is confused with them.
"Up to the late 1970s, common wisdom was quite relaxed about accusations and tended to wait until the verdict was in. To have been aquitted of rape was the end of it; it couldn't be used to have your children off you on a separate civil balance-of-probabilities in the the family courts. It couldn't be used to refuse you a job as, say, a school caretaker."
ReplyDeleteAnother fantastic own goal for the Righteous, then?
"There is a good reason for naming a convicted party, and that is so that nobody else is confused with them."
Absolutely agree, but in the Baby P case, there was the other trial pending, which determined the need to keep the name secret, wasn't there?
The accussed did have anonymity for a short while but, this being the government, the law was drawn up in such a way as to prevent the publication of the names of fugitives i.e. police could go on crime watch and announce they were looking for Joe Runner in connection with a bank job but not a rape. Needless to say, when the pendulum swung, it swung too far.
ReplyDeleteI'm going back over Judge Stephen Kramer's handling of the Baby Peter and subsequent rape case. I'm not happy with it, compared to say, Judge Peter Thornton, QC's handling of the broadly similar trial of the killers of Sanam Navsarka. In Navsarka the defendants accused each other, so Judge Thornton was able to refuse a plea-bargain and allow the CPS muder case to go forward.
ReplyDeleteJudge Kramer had to cope with the refusal of the defendants to incriminate each other, which makes it very difficult to establish murder as you have to find which one actually struck the blow. The peculiar charge of 'allowing a death to occur' was developed for just this situation.
The anonymity appears to have been imposed while the first trial was listing because it was already in place when the first trial opened, but there seems to have been some doubt as to whether there would be a second trial. My guess is that had a murder conviction against the boyfriend been brought in, they would have not have had to resort to the rape trial. As it was, the jury was only prepared to find him guilty on the lesser charge of allowing a death to occur.
Various reasons were given for the anonymity, but they don't really stack up.
1) Child protection. Baby P was dead, but his siblings yet lived.
This is not normally a reason for failing to identify a defendant. Lots of defendants have other children. I have known it in at least one case where a parent was accused of killing one sibling, but the reasoning there seemed to be poor, because it was acknowledged that in the immediate community the child lived in everybody already knew what the parent was supposed to have done.
2) The defence argued that their clients could not get a fair trial on the second trial if they were identified. Plausible, but there is no requirement for the jury to be ingnorant, only that they set aside what they already know and judge only on the facts before them. Nobody said Sion Jenkins couldn't stand a third trial because he was well-known. Nobody said Karen Matthews was too famous to face charges.
3) Only the rape complainant, the child, is currently entitled to anonymity. It isn't clear how Judge Kramer thought that extending this would contribute to child protection.
4) and finally, the names are in the public domain because the court itself published them.
I still don't know what Kramer thinks he is protecting.