Morning - seeing as someone asked me about this...
I hope that Liam Allan and Danny Kay can have as good a Christmas as they could reasonably expect. In the case of Kay, he at least won't be spending the festive period behind bars as would have been the case had rather substantive evidence not come to light. It's now clear as a bell that neither raped anybody, the crime that Kay had been convicted of and Allan most likely would have been given the way the cards were being stacked against him at trial. To steal a line from Supreme Court Judge H Lee Sarokin, that the case was reliant on concealment rather than disclosure tells you everything you need to know regarding the safety of any conviction.
In both cases, 'disclosure' has become something of a contentious issue. Allan and Kay's accusers both had significant correspondence with those by whom they were subsequently accused of rape, the mere existence and timing of which (that's before we get onto the content) shreds any semblance of credibility that their stories might have had when viewed from a certain angle. Let's not have this wrong, these were not 'misunderstandings' or 'mistakes', these were outright malicious and knowingly false accusations against innocent men. If this can be demonstrated to a degree that might stand up in court then by all means turn the tables on their accusers and get them on trial.
Another worry for me is that 'disclosure' of evidence that would have cleared both men appears to have been deliberately kept from the Defence by the police. Fair play to Jerry Hayes, the former Tory MP and prosecuting barrister in this case, who insisted on the full disclosure of all relevant material, parts of which in his own words "blew the case out of the window". At this point Hayes advised the judge that the prosecution would not be attempting to present a case to the court and Allan's two year ordeal was over. Kay was cleared when an amicable 'morning after chat' between he and his accuser was fished from the 'deleted' archive of a social media account.
Now this has been dressed up as industrial scale 'incompetence' or 'negligence' or whatever and, to be absolutely honest with you, I'm not buying it for a second. This is politically motivated policing, a drive and determination to secure as many convictions for this type of offence as possible, with the destruction of the lives of people like Allan and Kay regarded as little more than collateral damage. Perhaps under some political pressure, the filth have abandoned any pretence at supposed neutrality (their job is to gather evidence indiscriminately, it's the CPS and court's job to make judgements) and flipped the presumption of innocence on its head.
Speaking of the politically motivated, I wonder where all the radical/militant feminists are at the moment to comment on cases like this? People who falsely 'cry rape' undermine, trivialise and disrespect genuine victims of the crime, making it a whole load more difficult for those genuine victims to come forward. Sadly, I appreciate that some will continue to believe that Kay and Allan were actually guilty and have 'got off', or that because they participated in 'laddish' casual sex that they somehow had it coming to them. On Feminista Island, sex is something that wicked men 'do' to poor, defenceless women.
That said, there are another group of people I'd rather had nothing to do with this conversation either. These self-styled 'men's rights activists' or MRAs quietly celebrate cases like this in the same way that ultra-nationalists actually celebrate some deadbeat blowing himself up, the slaying of Lee Rigby or whatever. They'd rather get the warm glow of 'being attacked' than the perceived injustice go away, and they clearly couldn't give two shits about the welfare of their 'poster boys' - rather like their femininst counterparts latching onto and appropriating real rape victims for their cause, I'd hate to see dismal MRAs using these poor lads as a cause celebre.
They've been through more than enough already.
If cases like this serve as the cue for us to drop 'Battles of the Sexes' and start dealing in straightforward right and wrong then perhaps some good can come of them. "The world is full of rapists who got away with it" is a false narrative. Equally, "the world is full of women who make malicious rape accusations" remains absolute rot. Genuine victims of rape who never see their assailant brought to justice are of course victims, as is anyone who is falsely accused (let alone convicted) of any crime against a person that they did not commit. There are no 'sides' here and seeing anyone as 'collateral damage' is toxic and dangerous.
Just stop it. Please. Holding people personally responsible for their actions would be as good a place to start as any - blaming 'men' or 'women' lets wrongdoers off the hook while dragging wholly innocent people into it.
One more from me tomorrow morning and then I'll be done until New Year's Eve. If you've got any suggestions for topics of discussion then please reply here or drop me a line on social media. Thanks for dropping by and catch you soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment