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A recurrent theme that runs through member’s posts is anger at the actions of the police force in arresting, processing, and interviewing them for what eventually turns out to be a false accusation.
Now to hardened criminals this is an occupational hazard and nothing at all to be feared, but this may be the first time we have come into more than fleeting contact with the police and so the procedure is extremely stressful. Couple this with the injustice of the false accusation and the whole episode will be a experience which can never be forgotten.
If the case gets to trial and beyond then the arrest becomes less significant in the greater picture and there is less anger directed at the police as realisation dawns that they are just part of the monolithic justice system, but if the case is NFA’d then the actions of the police investigating team are the be-all and end-all and any anger is directed at them rather than the rightful target of the false accuser.
Consider the police force as the paramedics of the justice system who are in the front line and dealing with all sorts of criminality; this job will pre-dispose them to considering that all who need their services are guilty of the offence they appear to have committed in the same way as NHS paramedics assume all their calls are to an injured person.
In fact more than a few 999 calls are hoaxes, whichever emergency service they are directed to, and it is useful to consider FA’s in this manner; however the police must make an initial response which is what they are tasked to do. The CPS will do any triaging that may be necessary and the judge will, if required, organise the admittance into the institution for as many nights as he considers necessary.
The police have to implement the laws which are passed by parliament whether they personally agree with them or not and it is helpful to remember that the legislators are elected by, and accountable to, the voters and therefore the general public, though it may well often appear that politicians follow their own agenda regardless. Nevertheless if the populace is fairly united over any particular issue then the government has to fall into line and unfortunately the whole range of sexual offending falls squarely into this field as instanced by the various online comments made whenever a particular case is featured in the news and the police are only implementing the wishes of the majority in pursuing thorough investigations with the sole objective of proving the accused person guilty rather than ‘getting them off’ by proving their innocence.
Just as an example, the offence of rape within a marriage has only comparatively recently been created. (and try canvassing opinions about this!) I can hardly imagine that the police force welcomed this development , however they were then obliged to investigate all the extra accusations brought by aggrieved and jilted partners and thereby incur the wrath of those falsely accused.
At this point it will be useful to understand a serving policeman’s opinion and I will quote ‘Inspector Gadget’. He is a real person though I have no idea of his actual rank but he wrote a popular and long running blog which was highly critical of various government initiatives and targets which were not conducive to safe and effective policing. Perhaps because of this, it was decreed from above that serving officers would face dismissal if they continued to write such blogs. I imagine that ‘Inspector Gadget’s identity was fairly well known within the force and therefore he sensibly stopped blogging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Inspector_Blog
However nothing is ever lost on the web and I will reproduce one of his posts below together with the link where it is preserved:
Rape Hokum Out of every ten rapes which are reported in Ruraltown, at least eight turn out to be nonsense. Inspector Gadget - A UK POLICE OFFICER ...
As a serving policeman, there are several things I am not allowed to talk about.
There are plenty of operational secrets we cannot discuss, but I’m not referring to those. I’m talking about the taboo subjects. The ‘detection’ rate for rape is one of these.
It’s very frustrating to sit and listen to pundits talking about the low number of rape convictions in Court, when as police officers we all know what lies behind these poor numbers.
For example, I couldn’t possibly tell you that out of every ten rapes which are reported in Ruraltown, at least eight turn out to be nonsense. To be fair, eight out of ten of everything reported at Ruraltown police station is nonsense, why should rape be any different?
I couldn’t tell you that of the remaining two, an existing alcohol-fuelled chaotic drug-based relationship is a factor in at least one of these, and ‘consent’ is probably present in the other to some degree. In my whole service I can only recall three stranger rapes and a half a dozen where consent was withdrawn at the time and he carried on. But I can’t tell you that.
I can’t tell you that most of the adult rapes reported in Ruraltown represent either the latest in a series of allegations designed to score points against an ‘ex, lies designed to fend off an angry parent when a curfew has been missed or a defence mechanism when a jilted ‘partner’ discovers an infidelity.
A rape once reported, even if withdrawn later, is in the system and a failure to bring someone to justice, even if it never happened, shows up in the ‘detection’ rate. The ‘detection rate’ is low because the number of rapes which actually happen is low. I couldn’t possibly say that though.
So who suffers when Charlene drops by the nick to accuse Wayne of raping her because she is hacked off that he used her child benefit money for drugs? Who suffers when we deploy a full investigation team, send officers out to arrest Wayne and deploy CSI’s and specialist rape officers to the victim suite, all for Charlene to suddenly decide that she loves him and he didn’t do it after all? Who loses when she can’t identify a scene (because there never was a scene) when we can see on CCTV that Wayne was in the High Street (on his own) at the material time and that her mobile phone records show that she was texting her mate who works at Tesco, right at the time she was supposed to be being brutally taken by the boy?
The next genuine rape victim to walk into the police station, that’s who. The next genuine victim who may face the cynical looks and delayed reaction from officers who have just finished dealing with the last ten Charlenes.
I also shouldn’t tell you that it is Force Policy, in all but the most exceptional cases, not to prosecute Charlene for wasting police time. Apparently this would prevent genuine victims from coming forward. Make no mistake, the genuine victims suffer, the detection rate is low and we keep pretending that everything is alright.
The facts about rape seen from the street are this: most genuine rapes are against children under 13 years old and are within the family or family circle. Genuine adult rape is rare and nearly always charged to Court; what a jury do next is for them, but it usually comes down to ‘consent’ issues, and being as they were not in the bedroom at the time, and we are not simply proving intercourse because that is already admitted by the defendant, it’s not really within our gift to prove or disprove consent. Consent can amount to one word, said in a half whisper six months before in a darkened room where no one else was present.
But we can’t possibly say any of this. We will simply accept that it’s all our fault and promise to do better in the future.
http://www.angryharry.com/esOneThirdOfMenAreRapist
Now to hardened criminals this is an occupational hazard and nothing at all to be feared, but this may be the first time we have come into more than fleeting contact with the police and so the procedure is extremely stressful. Couple this with the injustice of the false accusation and the whole episode will be a experience which can never be forgotten.
If the case gets to trial and beyond then the arrest becomes less significant in the greater picture and there is less anger directed at the police as realisation dawns that they are just part of the monolithic justice system, but if the case is NFA’d then the actions of the police investigating team are the be-all and end-all and any anger is directed at them rather than the rightful target of the false accuser.
Consider the police force as the paramedics of the justice system who are in the front line and dealing with all sorts of criminality; this job will pre-dispose them to considering that all who need their services are guilty of the offence they appear to have committed in the same way as NHS paramedics assume all their calls are to an injured person.
In fact more than a few 999 calls are hoaxes, whichever emergency service they are directed to, and it is useful to consider FA’s in this manner; however the police must make an initial response which is what they are tasked to do. The CPS will do any triaging that may be necessary and the judge will, if required, organise the admittance into the institution for as many nights as he considers necessary.
The police have to implement the laws which are passed by parliament whether they personally agree with them or not and it is helpful to remember that the legislators are elected by, and accountable to, the voters and therefore the general public, though it may well often appear that politicians follow their own agenda regardless. Nevertheless if the populace is fairly united over any particular issue then the government has to fall into line and unfortunately the whole range of sexual offending falls squarely into this field as instanced by the various online comments made whenever a particular case is featured in the news and the police are only implementing the wishes of the majority in pursuing thorough investigations with the sole objective of proving the accused person guilty rather than ‘getting them off’ by proving their innocence.
Just as an example, the offence of rape within a marriage has only comparatively recently been created. (and try canvassing opinions about this!) I can hardly imagine that the police force welcomed this development , however they were then obliged to investigate all the extra accusations brought by aggrieved and jilted partners and thereby incur the wrath of those falsely accused.
At this point it will be useful to understand a serving policeman’s opinion and I will quote ‘Inspector Gadget’. He is a real person though I have no idea of his actual rank but he wrote a popular and long running blog which was highly critical of various government initiatives and targets which were not conducive to safe and effective policing. Perhaps because of this, it was decreed from above that serving officers would face dismissal if they continued to write such blogs. I imagine that ‘Inspector Gadget’s identity was fairly well known within the force and therefore he sensibly stopped blogging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Inspector_Blog
However nothing is ever lost on the web and I will reproduce one of his posts below together with the link where it is preserved:
Rape Hokum Out of every ten rapes which are reported in Ruraltown, at least eight turn out to be nonsense. Inspector Gadget - A UK POLICE OFFICER ...
As a serving policeman, there are several things I am not allowed to talk about.
There are plenty of operational secrets we cannot discuss, but I’m not referring to those. I’m talking about the taboo subjects. The ‘detection’ rate for rape is one of these.
It’s very frustrating to sit and listen to pundits talking about the low number of rape convictions in Court, when as police officers we all know what lies behind these poor numbers.
For example, I couldn’t possibly tell you that out of every ten rapes which are reported in Ruraltown, at least eight turn out to be nonsense. To be fair, eight out of ten of everything reported at Ruraltown police station is nonsense, why should rape be any different?
I couldn’t tell you that of the remaining two, an existing alcohol-fuelled chaotic drug-based relationship is a factor in at least one of these, and ‘consent’ is probably present in the other to some degree. In my whole service I can only recall three stranger rapes and a half a dozen where consent was withdrawn at the time and he carried on. But I can’t tell you that.
I can’t tell you that most of the adult rapes reported in Ruraltown represent either the latest in a series of allegations designed to score points against an ‘ex, lies designed to fend off an angry parent when a curfew has been missed or a defence mechanism when a jilted ‘partner’ discovers an infidelity.
A rape once reported, even if withdrawn later, is in the system and a failure to bring someone to justice, even if it never happened, shows up in the ‘detection’ rate. The ‘detection rate’ is low because the number of rapes which actually happen is low. I couldn’t possibly say that though.
So who suffers when Charlene drops by the nick to accuse Wayne of raping her because she is hacked off that he used her child benefit money for drugs? Who suffers when we deploy a full investigation team, send officers out to arrest Wayne and deploy CSI’s and specialist rape officers to the victim suite, all for Charlene to suddenly decide that she loves him and he didn’t do it after all? Who loses when she can’t identify a scene (because there never was a scene) when we can see on CCTV that Wayne was in the High Street (on his own) at the material time and that her mobile phone records show that she was texting her mate who works at Tesco, right at the time she was supposed to be being brutally taken by the boy?
The next genuine rape victim to walk into the police station, that’s who. The next genuine victim who may face the cynical looks and delayed reaction from officers who have just finished dealing with the last ten Charlenes.
I also shouldn’t tell you that it is Force Policy, in all but the most exceptional cases, not to prosecute Charlene for wasting police time. Apparently this would prevent genuine victims from coming forward. Make no mistake, the genuine victims suffer, the detection rate is low and we keep pretending that everything is alright.
The facts about rape seen from the street are this: most genuine rapes are against children under 13 years old and are within the family or family circle. Genuine adult rape is rare and nearly always charged to Court; what a jury do next is for them, but it usually comes down to ‘consent’ issues, and being as they were not in the bedroom at the time, and we are not simply proving intercourse because that is already admitted by the defendant, it’s not really within our gift to prove or disprove consent. Consent can amount to one word, said in a half whisper six months before in a darkened room where no one else was present.
But we can’t possibly say any of this. We will simply accept that it’s all our fault and promise to do better in the future.
http://www.angryharry.com/esOneThirdOfMenAreRapist
) I was searching for a very particular type of sink waste fitting yesterday.
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