Dear Editor,

Response to Anne Macleod’s article on the ‘Free Chris Wiles Campaign’

While Rape Crisis Scotland does not comment on individual cases, I feel I must respond to some assertions made by Ms Macleod in her recent article on your website.

Ms Macleod asserts that our justice system seeks to get convictions for rape irrespective of whether or not the accused is guilty.  She puts her friend’s rape conviction down to political pressure to improve the 3.9% conviction rate for rape.  The evidence simply does not back this up.  Not only is the conviction rate for rape not increasing, new figures released by the Scottish Government this month (June 2008) demonstrate that it has actually fallen to a record low of 2.9% of rapes reported to the police resulting in a conviction. There is no evidence that false allegations for rape are higher than for any other crime.  Surely no one could argue with any credibility that over 97% of women reporting rape are lying?

Ms Macleod also asserts that there was absolutely no evidence against her friend who was convicted of rape.  We do not know the details of this case, but what we can say with absolute certainty is that no rape case will get as far as court if there is no independent evidence capable of supporting the woman’s statement that she did not consent.  Very few rapes reported to the police make it as far as court – according to the Scottish Government figures for 2006/2007, only 7% make it this far.  Despite the assertions contained in Ms Macleod’s article, there has been absolutely no change in the burden of proof for rape.  Indeed our requirement for corroboration in Scotland means that rape is one of the very hardest crimes to prove, in order to satisfy a jury beyond reasonable doubt that a rape took place.

I do not doubt Ms Macleod’s genuine belief in her friend’s innocence.  However, I am quite shocked at her reference to the young woman having had a sexually transmitted infection.  While Ms Macleod purports to be explaining away evidence at the trial, there is a very clear subtext to this part of her article which is to make readers aware of the (assumed) sexual history of the woman.  This is all too reminiscent of the tactics of defence lawyers in rape trials – recent research found that 7 out of 10 women giving evidence in a rape or attempted rape trial will be asked about their sexual history or character.  This type of evidence is – in our view – deliberately designed to appeal to any prejudices jury members may hold about women’s behaviour, particularly in relation to sex.  Ms Macleod does her argument no favours by making these kinds of comments in such a public forum, and I am surprised to find this on your website.

Ms Macleod believes that we now have a cultural and political narrative which portrays all men as potential abusers and women solely as victims.  Our 2.9% conviction rate for rape would suggest otherwise.

Sandy Brindley, Rape Crisis Scotland

Just thought I’d e-mail to say how much I’ve enjoyed the first two issues of your magazine – although I hadn’t heard of you until a friend e-mailed me a link a few weeks back. I’ve never been a ‘joiner’ of things but I’ve always voted SNP with my first vote and for an explicitly socialist party with my second vote (SSP at first, then Solidarity, after the unfortunate split). I’ve always been a supporter of independence AND a socialist and I get very annoyed with people who say you can’t be both.

It’s great to see something happening that’s a bit different on the internet/website front and I hope you keep up the excellent mix of support for independence, green issues and social justice as well as your culture and science based articles.

Needless to say I was very happy with the result in the Glasgow East by-election and the smaller left parties also put up a decent showing with 1300 votes between Solidarity, the SSP and the Greens. This seems to me to be a clear victory in solid unionist labour territory for pro-independence or pro-referendum parties. My one concern is that the smaller pro-independence left parties and the SNP could cut each others throats when it comes to the next Westminster or Holyrood elections.

I know there are differences between them, but until independence is achieved would it not be a good idea for the left parties to clear the way for the SNP in first past the post constituencies and for the SNP to do likewise for the pro-independence smaller parties on the proportional ballot? My guess is that, after independence, many SNP supporters would want to join the left in fighting for a democratic socialist Scotland anyway.

It’s probably unlikely or I suppose it would have happened by now, but it seems logical to me and I’d like to know what other readers of your magazine think about the idea?

Yours for Scotland and socialism,

Marie McRindle,

Angus

Vesta no more

Dear Editor,

It is sad news indeed that the sole wind turbine manufacturer in Scotland, Vesta, is shutting its factory doors in Campbeltown when it appears to be increasing its market share, and after receiving over £10 million of tax payers money just a few years ago. Is Vesta just after more subsidy to add to their profits in return for staying longer? Is it a good time for the Scottish Government to take stock of whether it is better to fund smaller, local businesses rather than large global companies that have no connection, and so no loyalty, to the local workforce?

I also wondered about whether the Scottish Government could not take the brave and forward thinking step of reclaiming the site (which apparently is still publicly owned) and setting up a Government owned renewable energy factory with research and development facilities so that the skilled workers could retain their jobs long term and new skilled workers would come to the area. Turbines could be built for community benefit on Government owned land. A new line could be developed for domestic use which is a huge market. We would no longer need to be held to ransom by huge private energy corporations who hold no loyalty to anything but the dollar, and work our way towards slowing or solving our energy needs without nuclear. Are they brave enough???

Yours faithfully,

Deirdre Henderson Branch Organiser Solidarity, Kintyre

Dear Comrades,

I welcome Rape Crisis Scotland's response to my article and am pleased if it has stimulated controversy and debate.

  If I had read a similar article prior to Chris's wrongful conviction my reaction might very well have been much the same. My sympathies too would have instinctively been for the accuser and I would probably have viewed cases lost through technicalities and loopholes in the law with an assumption that the man was guilty and getting away with it.

As my initial article made clear I and the Free Chris Wiles campaign find the disgracefully low conviction rate for rape appalling - but that does not change the fact that it is wrong for an innocent man to be in prison, regardless of our abhorrence of the nature of the crime for which he was wrongly convicted.

The experience of witnessing someone's life torn apart for a crime they transparently did not commit has opened my eyes up to the inadequacies of our judicial system for those wrongly accused as well as for victims whose abusers all too often stay free and unpunished. 

Whilst rape crisis state in their letter "no rape case will get as far as court if there is no independent evidence capable of supporting the women's statement that she did not consent" I repeat that there was absolutely no evidence supporting the allegation in this case. The accuser admitted she did not remember intercourse taking place and the only corroborating evidence was Chris’s own statement to police stating the position he found himself in on waking. Chris’s legal team incompetently advised him not to present a number of defence witnesses who could have helped his case on the grounds ‘that there was no case to answer’ and they expected the judge to throw it out of court. Our campaign believes that had the full facts been made available to the jury that day, with a proper summing up from the judge stressing the question of balance of evidence, Chris would not have been convicted.

I make no apologies for including in my article the information that the accuser had a sexually transmitted infection. This was not intended to infer anything about her sexual history and I assumed for readers of a left wing periodical, not a right wing tabloid, no such inference would be drawn. The information was intended to demonstrate to the reader the weakness of the prosecution case in that the accused gave her discharge as a reason for thinking she had been raped.

The doctor who examined her said that the discharge could be caused by her STD which was similar to semen.  I took this information from the court case which was heard by a judge and jury and therefore in the public domain.  I withheld from my article all the information that the judge did not allow the jury to hear.

This campaign is not about the accuser but about the solicitors who did not do their job properly and the judge that did not see justice done in his court. It is about the inadequate appeal system that rubber stamps mistakes and the lack of redress for victims of miscarriage of justice when they find themselves in the penal system. It is a campaign that has received the backing of Mojo, the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation.

Moreover my article was about a community campaign to highlight a miscarriage of justice. Chris Wiles did not choose the crime for which he was wrongly convicted and his friends and supporters will not shy away from their support for him because of the nature of the allegations against him. The reactions from some quarters against the article because of the nature of the alleged crime totally miss the point. I am not here referring to Sandy Brindley’s response but some of the over the top hysteria on certain left internet forums.

Should we not speak out against a miscarriage of justice because the alleged crime is rape? Not so long ago I'm sure everyone reading this was supporting campaigns to highlight miscarriages of justice where innocent men were wrongly accused of blowing people up. Is it ok to support some miscarriages of justice but not others? Of course not. But if there are those out there who wish to automatically assume that everyone accused of rape is guilty then they are living in their own simplistic, black and white, comfy, cloud cuckoo land – or perhaps an intellectual kindergarten.

The conclusions I and many others have reached are a result of knowing this case where a judge presided over a sham and a jury convicted an innocent man without being given the necessary information to make a sound judgement. Rape crisis say that the requirement for corroboration make it one of the very hardest crimes to prove. Are they arguing that a lower burden of proof should be used in such cases? If so, that is a dangerous path down which to tread in the legitimate aspiration to reduce the incidence of sexual violence in our society, an aspiration which I am sure we all share.

Chris was found guilty with no proof. He provided the only corroboration of sexual contact as the truthful person that he is.I would encourage Rape Crisis to find out more about miscarriages of justice in rape cases and acknowledge that such miscarriages of justice do nothing to further the cause of victims of rape.The many young people who support Chris have no faith left in our justice system, nor have I.

Chris is lucky in that he has many friends and supporters and our small community is 100 per cent behind him. How many more people are wrongly imprisoned – whatever they were accused of - with no-one to fight their case? Once in jail it is extremely difficult to get information and access the outside world in any way. It is everyone's responsibility to see that justice is done and when a miscarriage of justice occurs – whatever the political ramifications and complications of the nature of the alleged crime - to shout it from the roof tops.

Finally, Rape Crisis Scotland raises a straw man in their letter saying ‘Surely no one would argue…that 97% of women reporting rape are lying?’ Absolutely, and nowhere in my article does it say such a thing. I simply asserted that false allegations do occur as a matter of fact – a fact which, on the basis of her own figures, Ms. Brindley surely concurs.

Anne Macleod