A new government report says a lot of rape victims are still treated shoddily and unsympath-etically by the police and the law and this must change to encourage more women to act on sexual violence.Lady Stern's report says rape victims may still find they aren't taken seriously and not enough is done to catch the rapist. Often the case doesn't go to court because it's thought the evidence isn't strong enough. And if a quick conviction is unlikely, the police may lose interest altogether.
The report says many people still think a woman is partly responsible if for example she's drunk or wears risqué clothing. Or if she's already in a relationship with the man, then it doesn't count as rape.
So far so good, but it seems to me that one of the big problems in convicting rapists is that there may be no obvious signs of struggle or refusal.
Quite understandably, a woman may decide to submit rather than struggling because she's afraid of provoking something worse, of being beaten or killed. But if a jury has any reasonable doubt about whether consent has been given, they can't convict.
The other problem is that the court case may cause further trauma and distress as the woman is forced to relive what happened, and the rapist's lawyer challenges her version of events or even claims she was leading him on. Not surprisingly, some women refuse to go to court and face such added anguish.
It's hard to see how these difficulties can be overcome. Taking rape claims more seriously and ensuring the police are sympathetic are laudable aims but it's what happens in court that can still prevent justice being done.
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A tragic but nowadays very predictable hospital disaster. Ena Dickinson, a former NHS volunteer, died two months after a botched hip operation. The surgeon removed too much bone and severed a major artery. She was only saved from bleeding to death on the operating table by a hospital consultant.
