Tag: rape myths

So you want to be the next DPP?

The Attorney-General has begun the recruitment procedure for the next Director of Public Prosecutions who will take up the position in October when Alison Saunders, the present incumbent leaves her post to go and work for the City law firm, Linklaters.

Mr Attorney is looking for an “extraordinary candidate” to replace her.

The prize, for the lucky man or woman is a £206,000 salary, a stonking great Civil Service solid gold pension, the “Sir Humphrey” status conferred by holding a post “at Permanent Secretary” level and best of all, perhaps, a highly civilised 42 hour week. Many Barristerblogger readers can have a crack at the job. Under the heading “qualifications” the Government website gives but a single word: “legal,” although closer inspection of the website of Odgers Berndtson, the company running the selection on the Attorney General’s behalf, makes it clear that you must have been a qualified barrister or solicitor for at least 10 years. As well as the Bar and Solicitors’ profession Odgers Berndston are actively inviting applications from the judiciary. It would certainly be a first if the next DPP was a former judge. Continue reading “So you want to be the next DPP?”

Never mind rape myths, the criminal justice system is built on even more fundamental myths

These days no prosecutor is considered properly trained until they have attended a course to warn them sternly of the dangers of believing “myths and stereotypes” about sexual offences. The CPS website lists 10 such myths (defined as “a commonly held belief, idea or explanation that is not true”), including, for example:

“Rape occurs between strangers in dark alleys” (obviously it occasionally does, but the myth is that it only or mainly occurs in that way).

Or

“You Can Tell if She’s ‘Really’ Been Raped by How She Acts” (when, as the CPS correctly points out, reactions to rape are “highly varied and individual.”)

It is all to the good that any myth should be expunged by the cauterising effect of truth, but there are even more fundamental assumptions underlying the whole criminal justice system. They are these:

  1. Jurors can safely rely on the memory of an honest witness;
  1. Jurors can safely assess when a witness’s memory is mistaken;
  1. Jurors can safely assess when a witness is lying.

Unfortunately each one of these assumptions is a myth: a “commonly held belief that is not true.” Continue reading “Never mind rape myths, the criminal justice system is built on even more fundamental myths”