Consent?

[Life sucks]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times before, as it is key to any conviction, sorry if I'm going over old ground. This is all completely new to me.

The issue of consent seems to be a major, horrendous, problem in this country.

How do you prove consent when you have both had a few drinks? Consent clearly cannot be assumed by someones actions, for example, if the accuser kisses the accused first etc. It all seems to come down to her word against his, and as, in the majority of cases, no one else is there, how does anyone ever truly know what the truth is?

How do we, as a society get over this problem? A problem that is a far, far greater than I ever imagined, until this happened to my son.

Do we have to get a written consent, or a recorded consent? Makes me scared to even think about what could happen to thousands of young men out there, if this matter isn't resolved.

Getting drunk at a party and having sex seems to be rife these days. I expect it will happen to many people on a night out tonight. Young men are not aware of the consequences of this, my son certainly wasn't. He truly believed it was consensual, as she made the first move.

Sadly for some, the accusation of rape is made the next day.

How do we get the message out there?

[joe_3178]

Yes, where to begin on this topic?

I think there has to be more understanding by the justice system that consent can be a very murky topic and only cases with clear evidence should be taken forward, the presumption always seems to be in favour of the alleged victim and let's just have a jury make the call, however in the meantime lives can be ruined. We've seen quite a few of these incidents at Uni's and colleges (ie. Places where a lot of drinking and causal sex takes places) also involving young people who may not themselves be very experienced with intimacy and sex. There does need to be a clear distinction drawn between regretted sex and rape and maybe the police can find better ways to investigate without arresting? I don't know how possible that is but it seems to happen in some cases and for many untold damage is done by being arrested

[Tony1]

Consent

There is a real culture of the (alleged) victim. Regret and guilt are now solid grounds for a claim to be made. However the hope is that a jury of 'normal' people will conclude such claims are not enough to convict someone.

[innocentson]

Letting it get to court iOS too late

There is a real culture of the (alleged) victim. Regret and guilt are now solid grounds for a claim to be made. However the hope is that a jury of 'normal' people will conclude such claims are not enough to convict someone.

The trouble us, that letting it get to court means the damage has been done to these young men eg
Reputations, jobs, health & stress for them and their loved ones plus the crippling financial burden etc etc & the also "no smoke without fire brigade" culture they have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Speaking from experience ; its outrageous ..... More so.... when the police & cps can see these regret / cheating on boyfriend uni days cases don't stack up but they don't care as they are now institutionalised to believe the FA ...even labelling them "victims" as soon as they make allegations rather than the correct term of "complainant"

Not sure of the answer but my view for what it's worth
- it would help if the police were trained and encouraged to investigate rather than meet targets for a start