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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdaisy!saquigley
From: saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.legal
Subject: Re: Rape in  Ontario
Message-ID: <343@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Dec-83 02:58:43 EST
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.343
Posted: Fri Dec  2 02:58:43 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Dec-83 05:22:22 EST
References: <340@watdaisy.UUCP>, <2859@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 76

I do agree that we do not know whether or not a rape occured and that the
only people who do know are the three people involved in this affair, but
I also agree with the last person's comment that this is not very important
for the public's perception of the whole affair, and that this woman will
be seen as a martyr, and that her case will stay in the mind of many raped
women when they decide whether or not to report  a rape.
Therefore, I still find this case profoundly disturbing for the repercussions
it will have on all women across canada.

The reasons why I have assumed that a rape did happen are the following:

1- statistical: I have read in a rape handbook (sorry, i don't have the
   reference) that false accusations of rape occur at about the same 
   rate as false accusations of any other crime, which is somewhere
   around 5% if I remember well.
   Now "false accusations of rape" are actually more acurately called
   decisions by the courts that the accusations were false, due to not
   enough evidence.  This can happen very easily because if there
   are no witnesses, it is one person's word against another, and if the rape
   was done without any bodily harm to the woman, and if the woman's first
   reaction after the rape was not to go to a doctor as you are told to, but
   rather to go home and go take a shower to cleanse herself, then all the
   evidence is gone.
   I would imagine that after having been raped, a person would be in a state
   of shock, and might not do all that should be done to collect evidence, 
   and might not even think that there is something she can do against the
   person who raped her, or who might simply not be sure as to whether she
   was actually guilty of tempting the man and "got what she asked for" and
   so on.  The anger and desire for revenge might not come straight away
   either, so she might originally decide not to do anything and then change
   her mind once she's gotten a better grip of herself, at which time it is
   too late to collect evidence.
   This is my view of what really happens in most "false accusations of rape".
   I do not have any statistics to support this view, and I am sure there 
   aren't any available anyway.

2- Assuming that a "false accusation of rape" is actually a false accusation,
   then one must wonder about the motives behind such an accusation.  The
   most obvious one is slander.  Rape being viewed the way it is now in
   society, the slanderess must realise that by doing so, she will end up
   as a "slandered" along with the man she accuses, so I would imagine that
   once a woman has decided that this is the course she will follow to ruin
   a man's reputation and get him thrown in prison, she knows pretty well
   about the risks involved in doing such a thing, has accepted those risks
   and will not change her mind in the middle of the process.

3- She accused two men of having raped her.  If they did not rape her, she
   knows it will be two words against one in courts, and if she doesn't
   have any proof of the rape, then she knows pretty well, that her chances
   of winning are not that high.  I think that a woman intelligent enough
   to go through the whole acting needed to get one person falsely accused
   of rape would be intelligent enough to realise that accusing TWO men
   without proof is just suicide.  Surely, there must be better ways of
   getting rid of them or ruining them if this is what she wants to do!

4- Another thing that could have happened is that she thinks she has been
   raped while the men think they were just having a good time and she was
   playing hard to get.  Well to me that's rape.  It cannot be proved in the
   courts, but I consider it rape.

These are the reasons why I assumed she had been raped, in my own definition
of rape, which might not be the same as the court's definition. I am not
saying either that the court's definition should be the same as mine, even
though I would like it to be;  I am just explaining why I considered that a
rape has happened.

Now, I would like to ask a legal question.  I also found out during this case,
that the (alleged) victim of a raped has to testify against her (alleged)
assailants, not as a victim, but as a witness.  Is this the same in cases of
assault, or theft?  Is there a distinction between victims and witnesses in
the criminal code of canada, or are all victims considered witnesses or are
there just some victims considered witnesses?
If victims and witnesses are different, then what are provisions for their
security are they entitled to, depending on what they are classified as?