Alleged rape victim identified

Alleged rape victim identified

Well, you know what I’m going to say about that headline by now, don’t you?

After an emotional outburst in the Christchurch District Court as she gave evidence – and after the court was adjourned to give her time to compose herself – Jacqueline Howat told Judge Murray Abbott she wanted her name made public.

Complainants in sexual abuse cases have their names automatically suppressed.

However, after Howat’s unusual request, the judge made a special order allowing publication.

I think this was incredibly brave of her, particularly given the way the media frequently treats both rape survivors and sex workers, let alone those who are both.

She repeated her claim that she could identify the accused as the attacker, but agreed she had blocked out a lot of what happened on the night.

The “but” implies that these things are contradictory; they’re not. I think it was Maia who said to me recently that trials in such cases should include expert witness on how memory works during and after trauma. Suffice it to say that for her memory to work in this way is neither unusual nor illogical.

%^#@%&^*$^#

SHE’S NOT AN ALLEGED VICTIM, OK?

I suspect the reporting on this trial will just get worse

In 2003, a woman was brutally attacked and raped. A couple of years later a police trainee gave his fingerprints during training and they matched a fingerprint at the scene. That man is now on trial.

I think I have to give Radio NZ’s reporter points for trying (listen here). She emphasised the fact that no-one was denying that the woman had been attacked and raped.

But TV3 gets no points for this:

It is alleged the rape happened in 2003

The rape did take place in 2003, ‘it is alleged’ that this man was the attacker. Is it that hard to grasp?

Action in Christchurch

Jo reports on the Christchurch demo at the start of the John Dewar trial.

Untold stories

Accused teacher says life shattered

Now I know there will be issues with what the media can report, but even so there is a huge disparity in this article between the teacher’s viewpoint and that of the girl. We hear all about his “supporters” and how this has shattered his life and his (rather short sighted) assertion that this is “anyone’s worst nightmare”.

So what about her. How has this affected her life. Can she sleep at night? Does she have nightmares? Is she still at school or is she too afraid? Is she ostracised there? Is she able to concentrate? Are her parents supporting her? Is she being blamed for what happened to her? How does she feel being accused of lying?

Because these are the stories that so often go untold.

We believe Louise Nicholas!

Protests at the start of John Dewar’s trial – be there!

(Please forward to your networks. Apologies for cross posting.)

In the early 1990s John Dewar persuaded Louise Nicholas not to make a formal complaint against Bob Schollum, Brad Shipton and Clint Rickards.

He has now been charged with attempting to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice. His trial will begin on Tuesday 24th June.

Come along and protest this cover-up and show your support for Louise Nicholas and other survivors of police rape.

Wellington
Rally 12pm, Tuesday 24th July outside the High Court, Molesworth Street (opposite parliament)

Organised by Wellington Action Against Rape. For more information contact gracemaiamillar@gmail.com

Auckland
Picket 5pm, Tuesday 24th July outside Britomart

Contact Ruth Amato on 021 253 0118

Christchurch

Information and interactive street theatre 12pm, Tuesday 24th July outside Police Centre, Cathedral Square.

____________________________________

Who is John Dewar?
John Dewar was the head of the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) of Rotorua police in the early 1990s.

What is he being charged with?
John Dewar is being charged with four charges of attempting to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice between 1993 and 1994.

When is his trial?
His trial will begin on Tuesday July 24th.  He has pleaded ‘not guilty’.

What are the charges about?
In the early 1990s John Dewar persuaded Louise Nicholas not to make a formal complaint against Bob Schollum, Brad Shipton and Clint Rickards.  He did not investigate the complaint properly.  Judge Lance criticised his conduct: “I am of the view [John Dewar's] failure to record and detail these allegations was not only remarkable, it was utterly incredible. [...] After all, here was an experienced detective inspector investigating allegations of serious sexual offending. During his interview with the complainant, he is told of allegations of potentially serious sexual offending by three other named and currently serving police officers.”

Weren’t Clint Rickards, Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton found innocent?
They were found not guilty – there wasn’t enough evidence 20 years later.  If John Dewar hadn’t tried to protect his mates, and investigated the complaints properly the trials might have gone very differently.

Why does this matter?
Women who were raped by police in Rotorua in the 1980s didn’t make complaints, because they thought no-one would believe them.  What happened when Louise Nicholas tried to make a complaint showed that they were right.  When the police protect their own from accusations of rape, as John Dewar did in this case, then you are giving police a license to act with impunity.

What can people who believe Louise Nicholas do?
There will be pickets outside the High Court in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on the first day of the trial, Tuesday 24. The details are:

Wellington
Rally 12pm, Tuesday 24th July outside the High Court, Molesworth Street (opposite parliament)

Organised by Wellington Action Against Rape. For more information contact gracemaiamillar@gmail.com

Auckland
Picket 5pm, Tuesday 24th July outside Britomart

Contact Ruth Amato on 021 253 0118

Christchurch

Information and interactive street theatre 12pm, Tuesday 24th July outside Police Centre, Cathedral Square.

A positive example

Here’s a positive example of how newspapers can – and should – not question the veracity of what happened to the person who was sexually assaulted, but at the same time not assume the guilt of the perpetrator.

If only more journalists did the same.

A 54-year-old car salesman is to appear in court today on charges relating to the abduction and sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in West Auckland two weeks ago.

So the article assumes the events have happened, but states that the man has been charged with them, not that he did them.

The girl was walking along West Coast Rd in Glen Eden on her way to visit a friend when she was lured into a car.

She was sexually and physically abused during her 45-minute ordeal in West Auckland.

So there is no use of the word allegedly here, that these events happened is not questioned.

The man had allegedly asked the teenager for directions, then insisted she get into his car to show him the way.

Here the word allegedly is used, and whilst it’s not the ideal phrasing it is only done here because it is describing his involvement in what happened, rather than just what happened.

The man will appear in the Rotorua District Court to face charges of abduction, sexual violation, and assault with intent to commit sexual violation of a girl aged between 12 and 16 years.

A straightforward statement of fact, with no judgement implied on either his guilt or her truthfulness/reliability.

The power of words

This post isn’t directly about the media, but the issues raised carry through into that domain.

From Slate:

Yet a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

Safi’s first trial resulted in a hung jury last November when jurors deadlocked 7-5. Responding to Cheuvront’s initial language ban—which will be in force again when Safi is retried in July—prosecutors upped the ante last month by seeking to have words like sex and intercourse barred from the courtroom as well. The judge denied that motion, evidently on the theory that there would be no words left to describe the sex act at all. The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—sex—to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they’ll just have to read the witnesses’ eyebrows to sort out the difference.

The article also highlights the different ways rape is thought about and handled compared to other crimes:

The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the word sex is another “legal conclusion”—that the intercourse was consensual. And it’s hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a rape trial has to describe herself as having had “intercourse” with the defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?

The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal language from trial testimony—presumably one can still say murder or embezzlement on the stand—reflects not just the fraught nature of language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a society still somehow think rape is different—either because we assume the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are particularly deceitful. Is the word rape truly more inflammatory to a jury than the word robbery? Yes, the question of the victim’s consent surely makes a rape trial more complicated than some other kinds of criminal trials. But the fact that the evidence may be more equivocal hardly makes the underlying word more likely to incite blind juror outrage.

‘Our’ language is often lacking in appropriate terms for rape survivors to describe their experience in, as it is for most groups who lack power or general acceptance. Likewise, ‘our’ legal system is a model that they must frequently adapt their experience and reactions to suit, rather than the other way round.

This case (which makes me very, very angry) is an obvious example of that, but I think it’s important we don’t ignore the instances which are so ingrained we don’t think to question them.