David Goodwillie

[Chicken Balti Pie]

Frightening statistics. Are those stats from the UK? I would have thought with advances in technology and mobile phones blah blah blah it would increase the chances of a conviction, but it appears that is definitely not the case. You wonder why its so low. Is it a lack of resources to investigate properly, a lack of evidence or something else?

In a lot of these cases, the victims withdraw from the process through a variety of reasons so the case collapses. Also the fact that sadly in most cases the victim will know the assailant so there will be enough blurred lines for the defence to use. You can have DNA evidence but if the assailant claims it was consensual as well, you need to then prove it wasn't consensual and if you don't have that evidence, it is a none starter sadly. It would be better if people could start respecting each other and stop being monsters but it seems it's asking too much!

[cher1]

You're forgetting that those stats are for 2020. David Goodwillie was accused in 2011 when it was policy to prosecute at all costs. In 2011 stats, police recorded just over 50,000 cases of ***ual offences of which just under 10,000 proceeded to the magistrate court. So we are talking about a 20% rate going to court. If you account for the fact weirdly a lot of ***ual offences are just a caution and that a police report doesn't necessarily mean they have caught a suspect, that is quite a high figure!

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it isn't an issue, I'm just saying that at a time when ***ual assault prosecutions were higher, they didn't have evidence to go through with it in this case and I feel it's a murky area to go off civil court cases where it is a single judge presiding with a lower bar for proof. I am aware that judgement was upheld by the court of appeal but it's not a retrial in that case and they would have to prove that there was a clear error in procedure.

Take your point about prosecution rates for s e xual accounts being higher back then, guess I was responding to your point: 'in the day and age where the CPS ARE instructed to prosecute at all costs' which is sadly not the case. I agree though that Goodwillie's lack of prosecution should be looked at in the light of 2011 figures, you're right. R a p e prosecutions were at 18% back then, so you could still say he had an 82% chance of not being prosecuted. Pretty good stats in his favour I'd say.

To those who asked about the previous stats, yes they are England, and yes they are recent. There's been a huge increase in reports of s e xual offences to police. This study makes frankly terrifying reading: https://www.theguardian.com/society/...le-uk-students

[BanjoPie]

Frightening statistics. Are those stats from the UK? I would have thought with advances in technology and mobile phones blah blah blah it would increase the chances of a conviction, but it appears that is definitely not the case. You wonder why its so low. Is it a lack of resources to investigate properly, a lack of evidence or something else?

Your mention of mobile phones increasing the chances of conviction makes me wonder if the evidence on mobile phones and social media has actually reduced convictions.

[cher1]

Your mention of mobile phones increasing the chances of conviction makes me wonder if the evidence on mobile phones and social media has actually reduced convictions.

One of the biggest drivers of reduction in prosecutions has been the CPS introducing a 'target' in 2017 that 60% of r a p e prosecutions should end in conviction. That led to far fewer cases moving forward.

The studies linked to earlier (The Guardian link) show the scale of the problem amongst young men. The rate of assaults on young women in Uni are horrifying. Unless you've had frank discussions with your student daughters, you're probably living in ignorant bliss. They or one of their friends will have been s e xually assaulted given that the s e xual assault rate on female students is 48%

[irishpete]

I see Paddy McCourt (ex loanee),has an allegation against him from last Sunday in L'Derry