Judge accused of 'victim-blaming' over rape comments - BBC News So judge makes statement that most probably agree with, queue outraged police commissioner and women's groups. Sorry, if someone gets so pissed they have no idea where they are, they are at greater risk. Doesn't mean they deserve it. Doest mean they want it. Doesn't mean its not rase. But, the higher risk is obvious. Its bollox like this that stifles free speech more than any islamic law ever could. #annoyedmorethanIshouldbe :rage:
How often are we told not to leave valuable items in view in a car, or your asking for it. Surely that's a form of victim blaming as well ?
I heard the judges comments this morning. I thought how considered they were, but thought if a male judge had made them there would have been a media furore.
The comments of the judge (Lindsey Kushner QC) were helpful, cautiously worded, and carefully balanced. The response of the Police Commissioner (Vera Baird QC) was also carefully worded, but proposed a slightly different balance. This is the way grown-ups discuss complex and difficult issues. It was predictable that some publicity-seeking group would try to seize the occasion to manufacture a bit of artificial outrage.So what?
I have to agree with the judge especially these days as both sexes have trouble controlling themselves when alcohol is involved
So I'm sick of it. It distorts what those who don't take the effort or have the intellectual capacity believe and makes our society all the worse for it. And the comments I saw reported from the ex-labour PCC didn't exactly look what you are describing with: ____ But former Labour MP Ms Baird told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "When somebody is raped they feel guilt and shame and they find it very hard to report it. "If a judge has just said to them 'Well, if you drank you are more likely to get raped, we are not likely to believe you and you have been disinhibited so you've rather brought it on yourself' then that guilt is just going to get worse." Ms Baird, a former solicitor general and ex-defence barrister, said the judge should have given advice to help women stay safe instead of implying "it's your fault for having attracted him in the first place". "This looks like victim-blaming and they (organisations such as Rape Crisis) are worried that, yet again, it is going to become harder to get women to make reports," she said. ------- Its a shame that "Ms Baird, a former solicitor general and ex-defence barrister, said the judge should have given advice to help women stay safe" doesn't see the very well and deliberated worded judge's statement as exactly that.
Media furores sell papers, generate clicks and make people who benefit from such things happy and fat. The power the media has, and their collective knowledge of which buttons to push, and when to push them... that makes people very rich.
.. I disagree with the comments so far. Her job is not to give advice, she is there to adjudicate the case, judge the verdict and offer mitigation or not. So her advice looks like mitigation. You can't allow a chink of light to the "its partially their fault" crowed
Well, we all have recent experience of judges involving themselves in things that lie outside their remit.
I have a good deal of respect for Vera Baird QC, having met her and spoken to her on several occasions. She is clever, tough, experienced, and has had an unusually hard life. The offence of rape is one of her specialty subjects, and she rarely passes up an opportunity to express her views about it. Sometimes she has gone too far, but the gist of what she has said on this occasion is that the emphasis should be more on advice to help women to stay safe, and less on weakening the position of women who have been raped after having drunk alcohol. Whether one agrees with her or not, it is a considered point to make as well as a rational contribution to the discussion, in my view.
The main functions of the judge in a criminal trial are to preside over the proceedings, to enable the jury to reach a verdict, to enable the defence to offer mitigation, and then to pass a sentence in accordance with the relevant statutes, precedents, and sentencing guidelines. A judge must explain the sentence to the convict and to the public in ordinary language, and in doing so may make comments about the crime in general as well as in specific terms. Advising people how best to avoid becoming either criminals or victims is a perfectly normal and commonplace part of that function.
I think it's less about the content of what was said and by whom in a measured or careful way, and more about the media headlines pushing on with almost 'fake news' generation I find it incredible at times how quickly certain news outlets change tack. One minute they're avid truth sayers, dead against anything remotely like fake news, the next they promote headlines taking things out of context to help stoke the fire and create things from nothing. I get it, headlines draw people in, but I find myself judging the way article's are written and the reporters themselves nowadays, more than the actual message they're trying to get across.
