> As with many child care issues there is an unspoken classism at work too: that only happens to the children of less responsible lower class people (which is false)
This was one of the hard problems about the Rotherham abuse scandal. Many of the victims had been in "care" (ie taken away from abusive parents), and their reports weren't believed. Therefore a substantial grooming ring could be built up. This is why people keep saying "believe victims".
The problem is that with children especially, it’s also not that hard to implant false memories and coach them to not only make false accusations but to actually believe them. This is part of what happened with the whole “Satanic ritual abuse” panic with “repressed memories”.
This is part of why people keep saying, “wait for all the evidence” and “presumed innocent until proved guilty”.
Yes. But in a lot of cases of sexual assault there is only testimony, and the dispute is over whether the activity was consensual or not.
You'd expect this wouldn't apply to child sexual abuse, but you'd be amazed at the number of people who claim the child seduced them and they weren't aware of their age.
The best approach against the "repressed memories" or "why are you reporting this now" is to make it as straightforward and encouraged as possible to report incidents as and when they happen, and collect and process any evidence at the time.
> The best approach against the "repressed memories" or "why are you reporting this now" is to make it as straightforward and encouraged as possible to report incidents as and when they happen, and collect and process any evidence at the time.
After the Cleveland "satanic abuse" scandal (where many children were wrongly removed from their kind and loving parents) the UK implemented wide ranging changes.
These include ABE (achieving best evidence) interview techniques that are designed to get accurate information from witnesses without creating false memories; getting social workers to say "allegation of abuse" and not "disclosure of abuse". http://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/things-children-say-di... and a culture of supporting the victim while providing a robust investigation which holds open the possibility that it's a malicious allegation. I'm not sure they're getting the balance right at the moment, and I think too many victims are not seeing justice.
Police and social workers are in a tricky situation here. Clearly Cleveland was awful and something needed to be done to protect innocent parents and children from the harm of false allegations. But the current rate of conviction for sexual offences is far too low (over 100,000 rapes each year, fewer than 3,000 convictions), and the Rotherham scandal was terrible -- vulnerable children being raped by criminal gangs were assumed to have "chosen" that lifestyle and abandoned by their social workers.
In English law consent still matters unless the child is very young indeed. The imaginary 11 year old in this story would be young enough that it's always rape and if the defence (or more likely the accused personally) tries to bring up consent they'll get shut down by the judge because it's irrelevant. But for a teenager consent matters and a defence barrister would be doing their client a disservice if they didn't seize any opportunity to suggest their client believed there was consent.
It's illegal for an adult to have sex with a 15 year old, but there's considerable gap between the likely tariff for "Had sex with a 15 year old" versus "Rape". The maximum tariff for having sex with a 15 year old is not inconsiderable (14 years) but it's far short of the tariff for rape (life imprisonment).
In the case of a 15 year old either might be plausible for prosecutors depending on what evidence they have. If it's clear there was no consent, it'd always make sense to charge rape regardless of whether they're sure they can persuade a jury the defendant knew the victim was under age - but if consent is tricky, or especially if the victim is prepared to testify for the defence that they consented, then you need solid proof the defendant knew they were under age or it won't go anywhere.
> but if consent is tricky, or especially if the victim is prepared to testify for the defence that they consented, then you need solid proof the defendant knew they were under age or it won't go anywhere.
This last sentence is a bit wrong.
Where the child is under 16 and has not consented the CPS recommend prosecuting for rape because that's a more serious offence. Where the child is under 16 but is "consenting" the offence of rape cannot be proved (because rape requires lack of consent), so the CPS recommend charging for section 9 sexual activity with a child.
> Conversely, when reviewing cases involving children under 16 and 18 prosecutors should select more serious charges involving proof of absence of consent over those contained in sections 9 to 12, where all the elements can be proved. So, for example, section 1 rape should be preferred to section 9 sexual activity with a child under 16 where the elements of rape are satisfied.
That’s true, laws differ on this, and in some cases there is a legal distinction not because statutory rape is OK but because forcible rape is so much worse. In the US, the scenario might be very similar to what you describe except with explicit plea bargaining between the prosecution and defense. In fact the prosecution would probably try to charge forcible rape anyway just so they can negotiate down to statutory rape.
This was one of the hard problems about the Rotherham abuse scandal. Many of the victims had been in "care" (ie taken away from abusive parents), and their reports weren't believed. Therefore a substantial grooming ring could be built up. This is why people keep saying "believe victims".