Some examples of false allegations:
* - In the two years prior to our first submission of our first petition on false rape allegations In 1997, Eilidh Connell, of Ayr, admitted a false rape allegation at Ayr Sheriff Court(17/02/97), and she was given a sentence of 240 hours community service. Her victim, Stuart McLaughlin, aged 19, had been detained for months awaiting trial, and the pressure of this ordeal, the blow to his faith in human nature, and the continuing stress of his having to deal with people who had heard of his arrest, but not of his exoneration, ended in him taking his own life. She had made up the allegation to make a former boyfriend jealous.
* - John Beattie, aged 19, of Falkirk, committed suicide after being falsely accused of rape by a woman from a Falkirk family "known to the police". The complainant’s friend had previously made an accusation and received several thousand pounds in Criminal Injuries Compensation. Mr. Beattie’s father has been in touch with the Procurator Fiscal since his son’s death. The fiscal intimated to me that he would have liked to have been able to bring charges against Mr.Beattie’s accuser, but was unable to do so.
* - Last week, Dr. Nadim Shah, formerly employed as a Resident in Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, was cleared after a mere half-hour by a jury at Edinburgh High Court. His "victim" admitted to have been infatuated with Dr.Shah for some years. She admitted to defence counsel that she had over a period of time had made between 40 and 50 "crank calls" to Dr. Shah’s wife. She admitted that she had slipped out of her parents house in the early hours of the morning (around 4a.m.) to keep an assignation with Dr. Shah in his hospital. She lost her virginity there in fairly squalid circumstances in a brief and unsatisfactory encounter. She left the hospital with Dr.Shah, and he paid for her taxi home. She continued to text Dr. Shah, but when he did not respond to her wish for a continued relationship, she decided she had been "raped" and made a complaint against Dr. Shah. Despite a mass of evidence to the contrary, Dr. Shah was taken all the way to trial, to an inevitable acquittal. I spoke an press agency court reporter, who has thirty years experience of covering trials. He said that although from he had evolved a professional technique of detaching himself from considering the guilt or otherwise of accused,(in order to be professional and objective), within five minutes of the girl starting her evidence, he felt that it was going to acquittal. This woman displayed behaviour of a stalker; frequent crank calls, a relentless pursuit of her prey, a refusal to accept that the affair was over, and an act of vindictive vengeance when her prey rejected her. The Shah case poses what should be an obvious question: if a male stalker had finally had a sexual liaison with a female victim, would the police and prosecution authorities have been so zealous to prosecute his victim with a sexual assault? The answer is obviously "no", because political and social pressures create a huge double-standard around the issue of sexual offences.
* In 1998, in order to avoid having to journey by bus from France back to Britain, in a well-publicised incident, a 15-year-old girl made a false allegation of rape in the hope of being flown home instead. (She was, and no other action was taken against her other than to ban her from future school trips. She did this in the full knowledge that a young English girl had been raped and murdered on a French school trip two months previously, and that such an accusation was bound to cause great distress. Her friend, who had conspired with her in this crime, received no punishment of any kind. A local man had been remanded, and subjected to rigorous tests and interrogation. No sexual intercourse took place between the accused and accuser.
* Four years ago a former Chairman of The Scottish National Party had been wrongly charged with the rape of his daughter after she had received psycho-"therapy" that implanted false memories of abuse. He was only cleared when it became clear that it was physically impossible for him to have done so, As his daughter had made the accusations as a result of her illness, (rightly) no action was taken against her.
*Wendy McClung was convicted of "wasting police time" at Inverness Sheriff Court (09/02/2000). To avoid parental disapproval, she made a false allegation against a completely innocent man, who had been remanded, and had had his home attacked and set on fire by a mob, and had "rapist" and "beast" painted on his walls and windows, before his accuser was exposed as a liar. Her victim lost two stones in weight and stated "my nerves are shot to pieces". McClung was not even fined, far less imprisoned, but given nine months probation.
*- Seven years ago, Anthony Tovey, a young man of good character (who joined UKMM as a result of his experiences) was remanded for several months on a charge of rape, until he was cleared by DNA testing. DNA testing would have exonerated him immediately, as no intercourse took place between accuser and accused at any time. Some prosecutors are deliberately delaying dropping weak or patently false cases in order to appear "on message" with regard to rape. Mr.Tovey is still traumatised by the experience today, as is his mother and other relatives. Anthony and his relatives’ experience has been replicated many times, before and since.
* We were contacted by Susan Cantona- Murray when her husband was charged with rape after he had had sex with a woman who had befriended Mrs. Cantona-Murray in order to (in her opinion) seduce her husband, who had had sex with her and immediately expressed to the complainant that he regretted betraying his wife, and that he did not want any sort of relationship with her. She made a malicious complaint of rape, but she had also bragged to friends that she was going to "have" him, and she also told friends afterwards that she had had sex with him willingly. The prosecution dropped the case after she had given evidence. Mrs. Cantona-Murray has appeared on national television several times since in support of our proposals, and is willing to give evidence to the Parliament. The family are now trying to move from England to Glasgow to make a clean start.
* Student Ashleigh Pitman was been arrested for rape after a former girl friend had complained that he had raped her two years previously. She had formed a relationship with an Iranian Muslim, who to whom loss of virginity was unacceptable, other than by rape. She received probation for her false accusation.
* - Daily Record, 26/3/97 by Charles Beaton.
Eric Andries of Stewarton, Ayrshire, admitted a minor assault on one of two women who cadged a lift from him in Glasgow, then demanded money with violence and threatened to charge him with rape. Temporary Judge Alistair Stewart, QC, said he " accepted his version of events".
* Record 23/5/97 (no bye-line.)
Rape Lie bride dodges jail.
Rosie McKenzie, 31 falsely accused a former boyfriend Bill McKenzie, to try to save her wedding ( no elaboration) Put on a year's probation at DingwallSheriff Court, (22/5/97).
* Record 6/4/ 97
James Chapman, of Bishopbriggs, was framed by wife after a row over money. She took a video of one of their bondage sessions to police and reported a "rape".
7 days in jail and loss of job for Mr. Chapman, also barred from seeing son whilst on bail. Mr Chapman has asked his wife for an IOU for his parents, who had lent her thousands of pounds, which had started a row. Mr Chapman complained bitterly of the cost to himself and the courts.
Article by David Thompson.
* Herald, 16/3/96
Tracey McManus walks free from court after admitting she had lied that Lawrence Kelly, of Grangemouth, had raped her. The court claimed she "had shown no remorse" Police waste 30 hours investigating.
Mr Kelly said he bore no grudges.
* DailyExpress, 15/11/95
Caroline McKinley, 18, admitted wasting police time at Dumbarton. She was the first woman to be jailed by Sheriff John Fitzsimmons. She told police " I was happy enough until the sex was all over, but later I didn't want it to have happened. It as her boyfriend, they had rowed and he had drove off and left her, so concocted a pack of lies for revenge.
She was sentenced to the maximum, of three months after refusing to comply with probation orders, Sheriff Fitzimmons " I regret having to impose a custodial sentence, (why? PETITIONER) but it is the only course left open to me.... you have shown no appreciation of the consequences to this man if he had been convicted (!) nor have you shown any signs of remorse."
* Record 15/12/95.
Liz Skene, admitted wasting police time at Falkirk Sheriff Court by making a false accusation Sentence deferred for reports. Her victim, Brian Ross was cleared by DNA after a delay of one month. His hair turned grey "almost overnight" Friend say the once-happy bachelor had become a recluse.
Record Editorial, 2/2/96 condemns her sentence(probation) .
*Scotsman. July 12/97. (Karen McVeigh)
High Court, Glasgow.
In the trial of Donald Lamont, of 40 Onslow Drive , Glasgow:
Prosecutor James Campbell, QC;
" .... (I) have considered the evidence, and have formed the view that it is no longer appropriate to seek a conviction."
The victim, suffered bankruptcy (he was a taxi driver, pending court case meant unable to renew his cab licence, his marriage broke under the strain (later reconciled) His wife became ill due to the stress of the case. She said " I never doubted he was innocent for a minute."
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In our previous petition, we enclosed some newspaper cuttings, showing other examples of false rape allegations.
*- Mr. Aftab Ali was freed by the jury at Edinburgh High Court after a homeless woman, who had three other men similarly charged with false allegations at different times previously, had maliciously charged him with rape.
*- Natalie Knighting was jailed for six months on 26/08/01 when she admitted she had lied when claiming to have been raped. She had done so after a friend had received 7,500 in Criminal Injuries Compensation. She had claimed to have been raped by a stranger, and a homeless man answering the description had been arrested and remanded. Her deception only cam to light when her boyfriend was s arrested for theft, and his DNA was found to match the "rape" sample.
*- Elizabeth Wyper was ordered to pay her victim £500 compensation, and do 180 hours community service ( Sheriff Colin Milller, Ayr Sheriff Court) after admitting that she had lied about rape after having willingly has sex with Mr. James Crawford.
*- PC Kenneth Watson, of Inverness, was subjected to a criminal and internal investigation after Frances Lawler accused him of sexually assaulting her after he had responded to a call she had made. Some months later, she made similar false claims against two officers in different areas. All three officers stood to lose their good names, jobs, pensions, families and freedom had she not been exposed by a combination of good police work and good fortune. She was jailed for all of three months after admitting to a charge of Public Mischief By Wasting Police Time.
* Mr. Roy Burnett served fifteen years, for a non-rape, as detailed in the report below.
In the quote below, the judge’s comments are particularly significant.
07/04/02 (10:55) MAN FREED OVER RAPE `THAT ALMOST CERTAINLY NEVER HAPPENED'
By Mike Taylor, PA News
A man who has spent nearly 15 years in jail for the brutal rape of a student nurse was cleared and freed today after the Court of Appeal held that the crime "almost certainly never happened at all".
Roy Burnett, 56, a gardener from Bromley, Kent, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 1986 after a jury accepted evidence from the 20-year-old nurse that she had been raped and seriously assaulted.
Burnett refused to admit his guilt, but had no grounds for an appeal until 1998 when the same woman made a false complaint of rape to Devon police.
The Metropolitan Police were informed and Burnett's case was re-opened.
But for the action of the police, he "might have continued to be incarcerated for many years yet", said appeal judge Lord Justice Judge today. The judge, sitting in London with Mr Justice Wright and Mrs Justice Rafferty, said: "If nothing else, this case provides a salutary reminder that an allegation of rape is not always true and that the man against whom it is made is not necessarily guilty. "It should serve to ensure that proper safeguards against the wrongful conviction of innocent individuals are preserved. If so, then, although of no comfort whatever to Mr Burnett, something positive will have been salvaged from this disaster."
The judges referred the papers in "this profoundly disturbing case" to the Director of Public Prosecutions for him to consider whether the woman should be prosecuted for any criminal offence. The judge said the false allegation made by the woman in 1998, in which she gave inconsistent accounts of being attacked by two men in a car, raised serious questions about her credibility. When Burnett's case reached the Court of Appeal, the Crown did not seek to uphold his conviction because she could no longer be relied on as a witness of truth. Although she remained adamant that her complaint against Burnett was true - that he followed her home from a bus, dragged her into woodland and threatened her with a knife before raping her - she declined to give evidence in the appeal.
Her current boyfriend, whose baby she had recently given birth to, described her as "attention seeking".
The judge said a re-examination of the evidence given at the Old Bailey in 1986 revealed many inconsistencies in her various accounts of what happened and her description of her alleged assailant. Scratch marks on her body, shown in photographs taken of her at the time, were, according to fresh expert evidence, "typical of self-inflicted injury". Someone capable of inflicting those widespread injuries on herself would be well-able to damage her own clothes, said the judge. The absence of other injuries which would have been expected if she had been attacked in the way she claimed was "surprising to the point of incredulity". "After anxious reflection on all the evidence now available, each member of the court has felt impelled to the conclusion that the only realistic explanation for the significant variations in her accounts is that these particular allegations of rape, buggery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm were not true." The judge said the court was troubled about Burnett's immediate future. There was anxiety that he might have become institutionalised. A great deal of trouble had been taken to find him suitable accommodation "so that he may be gradually rehabilitated into the community". . His mental acuity was described as "limited". But he consistently protested his innocence of the rape and, because of his refusal to admit guilt, all his applications for parole were turned down. Later, Mr Burnett left the court cells by a rear exit and was driven away without comment. His solicitor, Deborah Harman, said: "He has asked me to say on his behalf that he is very happy that at last the truth has been made public that he did not commit these terrible crimes. "He wants to thank the police for investigating his case and the very supportive probation service.
"He was impressed by what the judge said about not assuming guilt and that people should be wary about false allegations." Miss Harman added that Mr Burnett had told her he did not have any resentful feelings about the woman who accused him." .
Compensation for Mr.Burnett’s ordeal will cost the tax-payer an estimated £500,000, in addition to the costs of police investigations, his trial and incarceration. There has as yet been no decision to prosecute his persecutor.
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An example of the evolution of a false complaint, and of improprieties in prosecution.
In March, 2002, I spoke with Simon Collins, the Prestonpans-based lawyer of a young man, Ryan Glinn, who narrowly escaped an (estimated) five-year sentence for "rape" . The young man was cleared by the last- minute production of video-tape evidence uncovered by Mr. Collins, apparently concealed by the Fiscal or the police. This non-disclosure of vital evidence was the subject of long-drawn out complaint by Mr Collins to The Lord Advocate. What was put forward by the authorities was that the video evidence was not properly examined by either the police or the Fiscal’s department, with neither inclined to take the blame for a blunder that was expensive in both human and legal costs. It is open to conjecture as to whether their were more sinister, politically-motivated reasons for this omission, if in fact the police and prosecuting authorities were over-zealous to convict. The consequences for young Mr. Glinn were considerable, he disappeared from his home town and has not been seen since the trial. Mr Collins told me he was 100% convinced of the innocence of his client, and that the judge had invited the Advocate Depute in the strongest terms to abandon the case, but she insisted in going to the wire. Mr. Collins told me in our March conversation that he strongly believes, as we do, that politics and the media are undermining justice ( The US Dept of Justice study "Guilty by Jury, Exonerated by Science" ordered by the then Attorney-General Janet Reno) stated that "political and social pressures are pressuring the justice system to deliver guilty verdicts against innocent men." In the case of the US DOJ study, almost 33% of men in a sample study of 93 court-decreed "rapists", who were convicted before the advent of DNA testing, were proven innocent when retrospective DNA testing was undertaken.)
The Ryan Glinn case is a salutary lesson in how political and social pressure make it easy to wrongly convict a man for rape.
In the Ryan Glinn case, the complainer (or more accurately false accuser) and her female friend had been with two boys in a car. It was late, and both girls were under a parental curfew. Both the complainer, and the accused, and possibly the other witnesses, were under the influence of drink The complainer and the accused left the car and went into the grounds of a nearby school grounds leaving her (girl) friend and her chum's boyfriend in the car. There was a failed, fumbled attempt at intercourse, and when the complainer returned to the car, the accused left, leaving the complainer with her friend, and her friend's boyfriend.
Her chum berated her at some length for being so long, and for causing them both to break the parental curfew. Under pressure, under the influence, and emotional , she blamed the accused for not letting her go. The other boy, reacting to her feigned distress asked her if the accused had forced her. The girl, grasped at this straw, merely to avoid the displeasure of her friend.
Eventually, by the time this goes to court, we have sworn statements from the three that the girl arrived at the car running and hysterical. (This statement by the three witnesses was the crucial factor that established the boy's innocence, as CCTV footage showed her strolling back to the car with the boy who then left, but this only emerged the day before the trial
As the girl grows into her part, we now have police and fiscal convinced of the boy's guilt, so much so that it appears that vital evidence was at best overlooked, at worst concealed. The recent Channel 4 documentary SEX CRIMES INVESTIGATORS, featured a rather mannish policewoman, with a fairly obvious "all men are potential rapists" attitude.
I am happy to say that from the experience we have in Scotland, this type of blinkered and sexist officer does not represent the average female officer, although they do exist. Such officers are not above manipulating the complainant. Complainers are given advice to contact a Rape Crisis Centre. I have on RCC training documents leaked to me from the then Strathclyde, now Glasgow RCC, by a genuine rape victim, that states "we believe all men are potential rapists" and "we always believe the woman" which indicates an extremely unhealthy attitude to men. At an RCC she would have been pressured, propagandised, and coached in giving evidence, and made aware of the carrot of £11,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
The Fiscal's office is supporting her, and coaxing her. At least one, and possibly all of the three agencies above will be coaching her in a perversion of her evidence. Two independent witnesses, her chum and his boyfriend, will swear that she arrived at the car at the run, alone and distressed. It is quite possible that by that time, all of them believed it.
The girl, only 16, finds herself painted into a corner; instead of parental discipline for wrong-doing, she has now has sympathy for a traumatic " experience" from police, fiscal and others, and she has started a legal and emotional juggernaut from which she cannot dismount. .
She is the centre of attraction, the beneficiary of much sympathetic attention, and soon to be £11,000 richer. She would now be in an extremely uncomfortable position if she were to tell the truth. She finds it easier, and much more profitable, to go along with the deceit.
A young man, of previously good character, is going before a court where the standards of evidence have been tilted against the accused in rape trials by politicians anxious to appease the feminist lobby. Chief Constables are also under pressure, they like to please their political paymasters; we have police gung-ho for convictions, and a Fiscal's office so anxious to please the Executive's desire for more convictions, advance their careers, or push a personal agenda, that vital evidence is not presented. An attitude of " Don't confuse me with facts if they conflict with dogma, or affect my career interest " prevails.
By now it's obvious; this boy is going down.
It is of vital importance to appreciate that only a chance meeting between his lawyer and the school janitor, with an equally fortuitous turn in the conversation, that prevented a young man's life from being ruined. That, and his lawyer, Mr. Simon Collins, being sharp enough, and dutiful enough, to follow up the janitor's off the cuff remark that the CCTV tapes were kept for a year, not a month as the boy had believed. He obtained discovery of the tapes which had been seen, and possibly concealed, by both the police and the prosecuting authorities. The tapes proved conclusively that all the prosecution witnesses present at the "rape" had lied, yet no action was taken against any of them. Both the concealment, (or at best, a disregard) of the CCTV evidence, and the lack of any punitive action against the perjured evidence offered should be matters of great public concern, but they are of no interest to the authorities, and their inaction will do nothing to discourage other false accusers.
The UKMM is of the opinion that rape crisis centres and other feminist organisation, and many MSPs don't much care if a 17 -year-old boy has his life ruined if it stands in the way of demonising men; We very much hope that MSPs will prove us wrong in this. A free society obtains judicial outcomes for rape trials, not politically-desired convictions: political outcomes to criminal proceedings are the hallmark of totalitarian regimes.
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19th-July-2008
