"They hide the evidence!" The end of fair rape trials - Leo Kearse interviews academic Stuart Waiton

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WARNING: UNFUNNY CONTENT

I spoke to academic Stuart Waiton about the criminal justice system in Scotland and his concerns that rape trials are no longer fair for the accused (or for victims). There's now a "trauma-informed victim centred approach" that protects the feelings of the complainer (I'm not being snide, that's what the complainant is called in Scotland!) by hiding evidence from juries.

In the case of Andrew Keir, a man convicted of rape, CCTV and witnesses showed the complainer kissing him, pulling him into a disabled loo, and apparently having consensual sex earlier in the night. When the Crown dropped that first rape charge, all this material was excluded as “irrelevant” to the later alleged bedroom rape. The jury saw only a heavily edited version: late-night drunkenness and the bedroom allegation, with statements redacted so heavily they lost meaning.

He was convicted, and the Supreme Court upheld the conviction but raised issues about the process.

In the case of David Daly, the jury were not told that the complainer had previously fabricated a highly detailed pregnancy-and-birth story. Again, evidence central to credibility was kept from the jury in the name of rape-shield logic.

There's an organisation on behalf of wrongfully convicted men called "Justice for Innocent Men Scotland" (JIMS), mainly made up of partners of men who claim wrongful conviction. Stuart recently had women from this organisation speak to his university class.

As you'd expect with such an emotive subject, activists are in uproar, demanding that Stuart be fired and calling him a "rape apologist". The reductive hashtag "#BelieveAllWomen" is being applied to real life.

And given the power of victimhood, very few people are willing to speak out in support of a fair trial. A Scottish National Party politician said it’s “probably acceptable 1% of prisoners are innocent”.

You can get more information about Justice for Innocent Men Scotland here

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