http://www.stuff.co.nz/4284751a10.html

The woman, who has name suppression and who made a liar of Mr Rickards’ former Rotorua CIB boss, John Dewar, was going to tell the disciplinary tribunal that Mr Rickards and Shipton had sex with her in and on police cars in Rotorua in the 1980s.

John Dewar is an adult in full possession of  his mental faculties (although his ethical ones are obviously another matter). He made the decision to lie, no-one else.

This is the same sort of mentality that says that if a woman wears skimpy clothing and flirts then she’s clearly irresistable, and of course a man has simply no choice but to rape her.

‘Commie Mutant Traitor’ pointed this out in a comment, but I think it bears repeating:

Mrs Nicholas, wearing a thick cream cardigan over a white t-shirt and a long red skirt, told crown prosecutor Brent Stanaway QC she initially found Dewar helpful after she laid the complaints and came to consider him a good friend, even writing a letter to Dewar’s superiors commending him on his support and work.

And John Dewar was tastefully dressed in a raven black suit with a royal blue tie? I think not.

This type of reporting is hardly exclusive to rape cases, but it is some guide to just how seriously the media takes women.

I try not to read Stuff’s ‘Have Your Say’ page because it makes me angry. But I was looking at Google News for articles to blog about, and this one comment stood out:

This policy is very anti male – otherwise why not interview them as well? One half of society has been recruited to inform on the other half. One shudders at the use to which this information will be put.
Ian

Now I have extremely mixed feelings about the policy of asking women who go to hospital for any reason about whether they have been subject to violence or abuse – but my concern is for the welfare of those women, not the people they might be “informing” against .

But more to the point, acknowledging that domestic violence and rape are most often perpetrated by men against women is not anti-male. It is not saying that all men are violent – they’re not. It’s not saying that only men suffer from these types of violence – they’re not. If we’re going to have this system at all I have no problem with it being applied to both men and women, but it’s not some kind of nationwide prejudice against men that it’s not.

I have a lot of respect for people who genuinely work to end violence against both women and men. I have no time whatsoever for whiners who seek to undermine the experience of women or portray survivors of abuse as motivated by a malicious vendetta.

Also, welcome to Maia (capitalismbad) who’s just started blogging here.