Getting away with rape

There's been a lot of talk in the last few days about the tiny number of rape convictions in the UK and what can be done about it.

The blame is directed widely: at the police for not taking rape victims seriously; at lawyers for not presenting stronger evidence; at judges for finding excuses for rape; and at juries for giving people the benefit of the doubt.

But to my mind they're all missing the point. I think the real problem is that the evidence given by the victims doesn't point clearly enough to rape, to lack of consent, to coercion.

Too often it seems that instead of the expected struggle and resistance and non-cooperation the victim actually gave in to the other person quite easily and with barely a murmur of protest.

Well, says the victim, that's because I didn't want to make it worse. If I had put up too much of a struggle, I'd have been attacked more viciously and ended up seriously hurt. So I played it safe and did what I had to so it'd be over quicker.

Of course that's totally understandable. Who wants to finish up stabbed or strangled or dead? Who wants the rapist to get so furious they lash out wildly and whack you to bits?

But for a jury looking for clear-cut evidence of non-consent, the cautious, non-provocative approach creates too many doubts about what happened, and they don't know who to believe. So they end up acquitting.

I honestly don't know the answer to this. If the court wants resistance but the victim rejects it, then how do we get more convictions?

PS: The other obvious reason for the dearth of rape convictions is that many women don't even report it for fear of the consequences - humiliation, disbelief and further violence. The level of unreported rape uncovered in surveys is truly shocking.

Amsterdam

Well, the mystery departure was actually to Amsterdam which Jenny and I had never been to before. So many people recommended it we thought we'd give it a try.

But although we both enjoyed ourselves, we didn't think it was that special. It just didn't live up to its hype as a super-cool, super-stylish city.

Some parts were very beautiful (mainly along the canals) but other parts were grotesque, especially the roads round Centraal Station - just long tourist strips of shabby hotels, tacky restaurants and souvenir shops.

Smoking was still rife in cafes and bars, something of a shock now it is so restricted in the UK and Ireland. There was little sign of any green consciousness, with few of the recycling bins common in other cities. The only exception was the huge bike usage, with hundreds parked in every street - we were practically knocked over every five minutes.

But the atmosphere was very relaxed and stress-free. Everywhere people were sitting outside cafes having leisurely meals and drinks and long rambling discussions. The quality of the food was high and we had some delicious vegetarian dishes. There were lots of astonishingly thin women, who would have been labelled anorexic in the UK - do they eat anything at all?

Amsterdam also has some excellent museums. The temporary Stedelijk Museum site had some amazing modern art and the Van Gogh Museum has loads of his masterpieces.

But what really moved me was the Anne Frank House and the secret annexe where she hid from the Nazis for two years before being betrayed and sent to her death in Belsen. Lots of visitors were in tears as they inspected the mementos of this horrific story and saw how courageously Anne had always kept her spirits up and looked forward to a brighter future.

What also impressed me was the Verzets (Resistance) Museum which explained how hundreds of thousands of ordinary Dutch people had resisted the Nazi occupation in any way they could. Some 300,000 went into hiding while others risked their lives and jobs and families to defend their way of life and defend those the Nazis were hunting down.

So while Amsterdam had some spectacular highlights, that magic quality that other people rave about eluded us. We had a lot of fun but not enough to be going back.