To Rape or Not to Rape?

Rape is becoming legal in the UK

6 min readFeb 7, 2024

The Injustice of Rape

Three separate rapes were reported, one by the Guardian and two by the Independent. They have been amalgamated with reports into one below, with names changed to protect anonymity.

Maya was a 20-year-old woman. She went to a party where it is very likely someone spiked her drink. She lost consciousness and remembers nothing of the event. Whilst she was unconscious, a man took her to a bedroom and raped her. She was absolutely devastated and traumatised, with internal bleeding and fearing she had been infected with an STI. She found out the name of the attacker and reported the rape to the police. Based on a transcript of the case and other reporting, this is what she experienced.

The police questioned whether she had given consent to the rape. They told her that if she wanted them to consider her allegation, she could not wash, brush her teeth, eat, drink or smoke. She was not allowed to change her clothes. She was not allowed to clear up her mess. She was not allowed to go to the toilet. They took her phone, leaving her with no access to her family, friends or anyone else who could comfort her, which she said felt like a form of strip search. She was asked to provide details about which she had no memory. She refused to accept being dismissed by the police. It took three years before the case came to court, with her attacker being free to re-offend her or anyone else during that time. She was offered no counselling and no protection against her attacker. When it came to court, the defender’s barrister asked her deep, insulting and personal questions to try to portray that she had consented to her rape or that she did not remember that she did consent.

Around the time this happened, I saw someone driving a flashy car in Knightsbridge. He was driving at about 5 miles an hour with the door and window open, flashing the car at everyone who was watching. Although this did not happen, someone pulled him out of the car, kicked him in the face, drove away the car and smashed it. In the court case that would have followed if this was real, the judge would have barred the barrister from asking questions that implied that the driver had consented to be beaten and his car smashed because he was ‘asking for it’.

Maya was traumatised by her rape. Even now, she is terrified of going out on her own or meeting new people. She was re-traumatised by the justice system which she felt raped her for a second time. She has no confidence in the police force or the justice system.

First-Hand Testimony

In 2020, the Victims Commissioner investigated the criminal justice system of rape. Here are four examples of testimony included in their report.

“When I reported my rape, the desk clerk told me that as I remembered saying ‘yes’ to going home with him that there was nothing they could do.”

“I was under far deeper investigation than the rapist. [The police] had refused to take physical evidence — my clothing from the night of the attack — but wanted to investigate my private life.”

“The police kept dropping my case and leaving it unassigned. After 2 years I decided it was clear the system wasn’t going to help me.”

“I was terrified, upset and was asked inappropriate questions by the defence to things that I did not believe happened. It was manipulated and crude and I felt attacked again.”

Facts of Rape

In the UK 85,000 women (and around 12,000 men) are raped each year. One in five women between the ages of 16–59 experience sexual violence. 85% no longer report sexual violence to the police. A Justice Gap report in 2022 revealed that 99% of rapes reported to the police do not end in conviction.

The Crown Prosecution Service have a stated objective that striking the balance between needs and rights of victims and suspects of rape is paramount, so that “all parties can have confidence that they will be treated fairly”. We can be 99% confident the justice system fails to deliver on this promise.

To Rape or Not To Rape?

The artwork above highlights some of the injustices in the current system towards rape. Victims are silenced where the police and the justice system are deaf to their cries. Lady Justice is blind to their suffering. They are judged not on their actions or consent but on the clothes they wear. Rapists’ barristers high-five their clients in 99% of cases. Rapists high-five the judge in 99% of cases. The justice system itself is tilted firmly in favour of the rapist. This is not the justice system that makes the British people proud.

It questions why men would not rape women. Its answer is depressing.

A Message From One Biological Male to All Others

Like many forms of criminality, rape is excruciatingly difficult to deal with fairly. Wherever intentions are unclear, there is the risk that raped women will not receive justice or innocent men may be punished. But the current situation is clearly completely unacceptable, failing women not just once, but for a second time if they have the courage to run the gauntlet of a dehumanising and humiliating justice system that is completely bereft of any compassion.

This is true for your grandmother, mother, sisters, daughters, female relatives, female friends and any other females you ever encounter.

For the justice system to become fairer, there is no alternative to convicting rapists on far less evidence than at present. This makes it inevitable that more innocent men will be convicted of rape. This potential lack of justice for some men is nothing more than a small counterbalance to the 99% of rape victims who will never see justice.

There is a way we, you and I, can improve things without our becoming convicted through false allegations of rape.

Firstly, even if just out of self-preservation, we need to treat women with more respect. We need to cut out any form of sexist behaviour. We need to call out our biologically male friends, relatives and colleagues for any form of misogyny, be it simple sexist or demeaning comments or acting on some false sense of entitlement, taking by deception or force what is not yours to take.

Conclusion

Our legal perspective on rape has embedded sex inequality within our justice system. A bill being proposed in parliament would result in the jail sentence for the 1% of people convicted of rape serving half the sentence of someone convicted for destroying a statue.

It has become clear that our justice system in the UK fundamentally fails rape victims. If we want to live in a fairer society, we can no longer rely on inept politicians to repair the breaks. We can choose to remain in a deeply divided society that is so punishing to women or we can choose to take the first steps to heal the wounds inflicted by a profoundly disfunctional system. It is up to us to decide.