Mother jailed for falsely claiming sexual assault of her daughter.

[EJK]

"My wife is not a threat to society. She was only a menace."

A horse is a horse, of course of course!

[Mom]

You know, thinking about it now, I doubt very much that you could ever fully recover from being falsely accused. You would almost be tarred with that brush forever regardless of the truth.

Once upon a time I owned a bike shop. One day a Policeman came into the shop looking for "one of my staff". He had a nick name, it was Barry*. His real name was Sue*. All our staff had their names embroidered on their uniforms. "One of my staff" had "Barry" on his overalls. The Cop asked for Sue.

I called Sue up from the workshop and the cop promptly arrested him The charge? Rape!

Well that was a bit of a shock to the pair of us. He was duely carted off and spent may hours being questioned about raping this spinning female. She told the cops she was raped by "Sue". She knew who he was because he was wearing our shops overalls with his name on them. Well, who was a porky telling, spinning out, un-natural female? This complainant!

*names changed to protect the innocent.

Sue returned to work later in the day, traumatised but in one piece, and no longer under suspicion of rape. The spinner never got charged with anything!

[Oscar]

Holy shit - he must've pulled that figure right out of his arse. I hoped you wiped it off before using it on this forum. The incidents of false claims of sexual assault are incredibly low, especially in comparisson with the media attention they are given.

So you rebut an unsupported claim with another unsupported claim.
He said his was hearsay - where did yours come from?

[Bodir]

I am just thinking, how would you prove your innocence in a case like that. If there are no witnesses on your side, than the opposition can only tangle themselves in lies.

Frightening thought.

[kave]

I knew a guy who spent time in remand on false rape charges, luckily the girl who accused him got caught out by her own lies. I would not be at all suprised if there were a number of guys that have been jailed on false rape charges, I have no faith in our legal system.

[rustyrobot]

So you rebut an unsupported claim with another unsupported claim.
He said his was hearsay - where did yours come from?

I offer as a source: an extensive PHD study by Jan Jordan (you can search the www for it). Her main sources in the NZ Police were members of the Offender Profiling Squad in Auckland, Detective Sergeant Dave Henwood, Detective Inspector Peter Mitford-Burgess, Detective Russell Lamb, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Arnerich and Detective Sergeant Darrin Thompson.

Her study found that in the year 1997 (the year of focus) of 553 offences investigated by the police, 252 (33%) of them were found to have No Offence Disclosed (N.O.D.). She makes pains to point out that despite being presented this way in various media, N.O.D. did not necessarily mean false complaints and it includes complaints that were withdrawn (with various reasons why that might happen cited in the study) and cases with insufficient evidence.

So, YES there are a number of 'false claims' made each year, and YES it is a horrible thing for any man to go through. What frustrates me though, is how many people on this site jump on these cases and get outraged, without any apparent feeling for the huge number of men and women in New Zealand who are being raped each year.

Conservative estimates are that 70% of rape and sexual assaults go unreported. Ask around. MANY of my female friends have had experiences of sexual assault. Perhaps they fell asleep at parties and were preyed upon. Maybe they stayed at a 'friends' house who decided getting their end off was more important than their friendship. Some got plied with liquor by cowardly men who couldn't be upfront with what they wanted. Quite a few had a dodgy uncle or grandfather or father who couldn't keep his hands to himself. Why aren't you outraged about this? Why are you so defensive about the false claims and the poor men?

The majority of women raped in this country were attacked by someone they know. How crazy is that?

YES, let's be incensed by injustice! But what about some perspective?

[onearmedbandit]

No one is disputing the rapes/sexual assualts that occur on a daily basis in this country, but that's not what this thread is about. What it is about is false complaints.

I

[Hoon]

Holy shit - he must've pulled that figure right out of his arse. I hoped you wiped it off before using it on this forum. The incidents of false claims of sexual assault are incredibly low, especially in comparisson with the media attention they are given.

Sorry I'm with the OP here. I have a few cops mates, they all say the same thing and I'll take their word over a polished piece of paper any day. Yes maybe "investigated" complaints, but this does not include all those that are filtered out at the front desk. Of those, 7 of 8 (one figure a mate gave) are deemed timewasters and don't get any further. Rape complaints in particular seem to range from, chick getting too drunk and cheating on her boyfriend then regretting it, or chick victim of one night stand and wanting to get back at guy for not calling back, or angry ex, or jilted lover through to serial false complainants and attention whores. It's all these complaints that never make it in the door that the public never hears about. The stats you see in reports probably only addresses those that make it to 2nd or 3rd base.

[SMOKEU]

Sorry I'm with the OP here. I have a few cops mates, they all say the same thing and I'll take their word over a polished piece of paper any day. Yes maybe "investigated" complaints, but this does not include all those that are filtered out at the front desk. Of those, 7 of 8 (one figure a mate gave) are deemed timewasters and don't get any further. Rape complaints in particular seem to range from, chick getting too drunk and cheating on her boyfriend then regretting it, or chick victim of one night stand and wanting to get back at guy for not calling back, or angry ex, or jilted lover through to serial false complainants and attention whores. It's all these complaints that never make it in the door that the public never hears about. The stats you see in reports probably only addresses those that make it to 2nd or 3rd base.

That sounds about right. Drunk guy roots drunk slut at party. Drunk slut regrets it when she sobers up in the morning, maybe someone threatens to tell her boyfriend so she makes a rape complaint with the fuzz. Who are the cops going to believe more? The guy, or the female? It makes it even worse if the guy has a criminal record, even for petty things like shoplifting because then it's even harder to convince a jury of that guys innocence.

[rustyrobot]

Well, let's not let research get in the way of a few blokey cops "hearsay". Notice that all of a sudden you are taking the police word as gold, but not any of the people involved in offender profiling. Hope you represent them as well as the keepers of all truth in the other threads about police on KB. I'm not out to change anyone's mind, I can see you all have the victim mentality prepared, as well as the idea that all women are out to get you. Poor men. Oh how we suffer.

Oh, and onearmedbandit, I do humbly apologise as possibly the first person to have ever talked about something slightly off topic on a KB thread. Although, I thought it was fairly well related.

[onearmedbandit]

Oh, and onearmedbandit, I do humbly apologise as possibly the first person to have ever talked about something slightly off topic on a KB thread. Although, I thought it was fairly well related.

I suppose if I was the apologising type I would do so for obviously upsetting you so much.

Carry on.

[spajohn]

Another scenario is the divorce break ups with women falsely claiming abuse of themselves or the kids as a tactic to get back at the ex-husband and/or keep the kids. And yes, this happened to a family member, so not just plucking it out of my arse! :-)

Luckily the bullshit was seen through before it got to court, but still a nasty business.

[arkie]

"My wife is not a threat to society. She was only a menace."

lol

I can't believe he would say this!

I mean what is worse?

A threat to society or a menace to society?

One of wiktionary definitions of a threat is; a person or object that is regarded as a danger; a menace.
Ref:http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/threat

I think being a menace to society is cooler sounding! haha

[Hoon]

Well, let's not let research get in the way of a few blokey cops "hearsay". Notice that all of a sudden you are taking the police word as gold, but not any of the people involved in offender profiling.

No I'm not. All I'm saying is that your figures only address a subset of all complaints, those that have already successfully passed the first (or second) level of scrutinty so of course this will skew the results and this needs to be taken into account when interpreting the results.
Yes you could argue that the front desk cops 'may' let through 50/50 or favour false complaints or even speculate whether this 1st line of filtering even exists but this much like my blokey mates '7/8th are false' claim are purely speculation. Until an accurate study is performed that correctly takes this into account we will be doomed to argue about it on the internet for all eternity.

You've provided a figure from one extreme and I've provided one from the opposite. The only fact that we can accept is that the truth lies somewhere in between the two.

[rustyrobot]

Until an accurate study is performed that correctly takes this into account we will be doomed to argue about it on the internet for all eternity.

You've provided a figure from one extreme and I've provided one from the opposite. The only fact that we can accept is that the truth lies somewhere in between the two.

What the ?! Logic and reasoning? But I wasn't expecting this. I totally agree. (The study I cited does examine police attitudes to complaints though).

If my mother, or sister, or partner, or niece (or any person) went to the police with a complaint, I would really hope they give that person a fair hearing and aren't closed minded from the outset. But then, I'd also dearly hope that they weren't making it up!