The acquittal of Michael Le Vell has reminded us, as though it were necessary, that not all rape suspects are guilty. But however terrible his ordeal has been, the fact that he has been acquitted certainly does not mean the CPS was wrong to bring the case to court.
There are, nevertheless legitimate questions to be asked about how decisions to prosecute cases of this sort should be taken.
According to the CPS Code for Prosecutors no prosecution should take place unless there is a “realistic prospect of conviction.” If there is no such prospect “the case must not proceed no matter how serious or sensitive it may be”. Quite right too.
But one person’s“realistic prospect of conviction” is another person’s hopeless case. According to the CPS “a realistic prospect of conviction” means the situation in which “an objective impartial and reasonable jury … is more likely than not to convict the defendant.” On the face of it this seems clear enough: if the chances are that a jury will not convict, the case should not be pursued. The CPS has access to plenty of experienced lawyers. They not only know the law very well, they will also have a “gut instinct” for what a jury is likely to believe.
In fact, however, matters are not so simple. The CPS has made it clear that it does not believe in what it calls a “bookmaker’s” approach to applying this test. The key lies in the phrase “an objective impartial and reasonable jury.” Prosecutors are told not to try to guess the result as a bookmaker might, and to ignore their own views as to what a real jury would do. Instead, as Alison Saunders, the DPP in waiting, put it last year:
“… even though past experience might tell a prosecutor that juries can be unwilling to convict in cases where, for example, there has been a lengthy delay in reporting the offence … [that sort of] prejudice against complainants should be ignored for the purposes of deciding whether or not there is a realistic prospect of conviction. In other words the prosecutor should proceed on the basis of a notional jury which is wholly unaffected by any myths or stereotypes of the type which, sadly, still have a degree of prevalence in some quarters.”
Now, according to Ms Saunders: “instead of asking what is the likelihood of conviction we should ask ourselves, what would be the merits of a prosecution.”
The result is that prosecutions can be brought even when everyone involved expects them to fail. It exposes the CPS to criticism for making decisions on grounds that have more to do with social engineering than with law.
In Mr Le Vell’s case one of the features of the evidence was the delay by the complainant in reporting her complaints. The CPS regards the view that “if she didn’t complain immediately it wasn’t rape” as one of 10 “societal myths” about rape. For this reason Alison Levitt QC, who authorised the prosecution, is unlikely to have given it much weight when making her decision. For all we know she might have expected the prosecution to fail for that reason, yet still have felt that there was a realistic chance of a conviction with a “notional” jury.
Whatever criticisms may be made of individual decisions, the statistics do not suggest that the CPS is routinely bringing hopeless cases to court. A 2010 Home Office study found that juries actually convict slightly more readily of rape than of other cases of serious violence.
(This post was first published in The Times on 12th September 2013)
What I learnt from the Le Vell case was that whilst not all defendants are guilty, the media believes that all women and children (though perhaps not so much men) who make a complaint of rape must themselves be guilty if the accused is acquitted. And thus that no woman or child in their right mind would make a complaint against their rapist or abuser for fear of being branded a criminal all over the entire spectrum of our national press, from the gutter tabloids to the broadsheets and our national broadcaster.
This article in the Guardian begins with the words ‘False allegations…’ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/10/michael-le-vell-acquittal-vindicated
The same day, Christine Hamilton was allowed a platform on Jeremy Vine’s show on Radio 2 to proclaim that the jury in that case clearly ‘believed the girl was a habitual liar’.
Then there was this, just one example of tabloid rubbish. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2416979/Michael-Le-Vell-verdict-CAROL-SARLER-Injustice-twisted-legacy-Savile.html Funnily enough, certain features of abuse crop up regularly both in ‘misery lit’ and abuse trials because that’s how abuse works.
And the below the lines comments in all the press sites and the revolting misogynists of Twitter are baying for her to be prosecuted for perjury and demanding that her name be officially released (rather than bandied on trash websites), despite the fact that she is known to be a minor.
Le Vell has been acquitted and must thus be assumed to be innocent. I have no argument with that. But the idiots who write this rubbish need to realise that the law differs from reality. In reality in this sort of case, one person must be lying and the other telling the truth. If we can identify one, we can identify the other.
In the world of the law, there is also a dichotomy, but a different one. In this world there is guilty and not guilty, but the jury is told ‘guilty’ actually means ‘guilty and proven to be guilty beyond all doubt’. Every other possible scenario, from ‘we think x is guilty but don’t think it has been proved’ to ‘we think x is innocent and that this was a malicious prosecution’ via ‘haven’t got a clue’ is supposed to be covered by ‘not guilty’.
Since neither party in this case has had anything proved against them, it is insupportable that someone is having to read/listen to this nonsense about herself and that she is still being named by misogynist campaigners on Twitter this evening as I type. There could be no better demonstration of the [disgraceful] need for anonymity for complainants, and for its vigorous enforcement. When someone comes up with evidence for her to be prosecuted for perjury and proves it beyond reasonable doubt, then the criticism will be appropriate.