Scott Kuggeleijn sex trial
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="601149" data-time="1469748956">
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<p>There are people who withdraw accusations because they either lose faith in the system, or no longer feel capable of going through the process. <strong>Regardless, if your default position is the claimant is lying, or shouldn't be believed, then you're hardly likely to be in a position to adequately pursue the case.</strong></p>
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<p>What I believe would be a good change to the current adversarial nature is that neither party is publicly named until the outcome of the trial. This would help alleviate the possible character assassination from a malicious accusation.</p>
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<p>although on the flipside, if you are likely to believe things blindly you are more likely to ignore facts that may not quite stack up.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="601149" data-time="1469748956">
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<p>There are people who withdraw accusations because they either lose faith in the system, or no longer feel capable of going through the process. Regardless, if your default position is the claimant is lying, or shouldn't be believed, then you're hardly likely to be in a position to adequately pursue the case.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What I believe would be a good change to the current adversarial nature is that neither party is publicly named until the outcome of the trial. This would help alleviate the possible character assassination from a malicious accusation.</p>
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<p>Agreed however... </p>
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<p>I think the only default positions should be that all allegations are taken seriously whilst also preserving the innocent until proven guilty bedrock.</p> -
<p>I'm not advocating that a default position should exist either way; let the facts determine what happened. Obviously, with experience an investigator will feel one side is more likely to be true. Much as when I watch news reports from family members and immediately think to myself "<em>you're lying, you fucking did it</em>". But then someone's fate isn't in my biased hands.</p>
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<p>I am def advocating a default position, because it is not until a trial that the facts are known, and then how those facts are weighted depends on the presumption.</p>
<p>Innocent until proven guilty is one of the things that I feel truly passionate about. The day we move away form that is a VERY bad day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Innocent until proven guilty and letting the facts speak are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are not even related.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="taniwharugby" data-cid="601020" data-time="1469693945">
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<p><strong>I've had a few occasions like that, I asked, she said no, I turned over and went to sleep...</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ended up at a house due to mate shagging the friend, other bird was keen on me, just not on sex straight away..</p>
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<p>another one I woke in the morning and went to sneak out only to realise I had no idea where I was...wasnt much fun.</p>
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<p>That's called being married....</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Baron Silas Greenback" data-cid="601117" data-time="1469737452">
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<p>Can you expand on your belief that all accusations of rape should be seen as genuine? Do you mean they should be taken seriously? Or the alleged victim believed until proven otherwise?</p>
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<p>Because I have serious issues with the latter... and will happily debate it.</p>
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<p>And do you have a source for claim that only 2-5% of sexual assaults are reported? This area is full of misleading studies and blatantly dishonest claims. Another popular one is the the amount of females that will be a victim of sexual assault. In that case it is a case of 'if a lie is repeated enough it becomes the truth'. I will happily provide more information on this.</p>
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<p>As for your assertion that if 2-5% of rape cases are prosecuted, that does not mean only 1-3% see justice.. unless you equate justice being done with a conviction... which to be honest does seem to be the gist of that part of your post. If you trust your judicial system, then if 2-5% (A figure I would like to see verified) are prosecuted then 2-5% see justice done, a jury finding someone innocent is still justice done.</p>
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<p>Sorry, I wrote that post at about 2am, after a few beers, so I couldn't really be arsed scouring the internet for links. Those statistics were from memory, based on research online that I had done of other studies for a uni paper I wrote a few years back. They are probably 'give or take' a little bit, but my general gist was that in regards to sexual assault complaints, only a very minor percentage of them result in the conviction of the offender. There are a heap of reasons for that, but most commonly:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul><li>Except for stranger rape cases (masked intruder, dragged into bushes in public place etc) they often involve the alleged victim and offender knowing one another, which makes things murky and puts strong social dynamics into play, particularly when it happens within groups of friends, so victims either don't want to go ahead with complaints, or else you get differing accounts, depending on which side of the net a witness is sitting on</li>
<li>Alcohol is more often than not involved, which makes memories hazy and opens up a complainant to being slaughtered on the stand for being too drunk</li>
<li>They may be historic, therefore evidence has been lost or the complainant just wants to have their complaint noted and then get some appropriate help (counselling etc)</li>
<li>A victim often just wants to hear her story heard and have a medical check up to make sure she will have no ongoing problems (this is often the case in cases like the one before the court at the moment where it involves alcohol and he said/she said circumstances)</li>
<li>They may involve a family member and the victim doesn't want to tear the family apart, or is getting a lot of pressure on them from the extended family to withdraw the complaint.</li>
<li>Often they just don't want the trauma of having to relive everything 2 years down the track. We had some really cut and dry cases with great evidence, even to the point of confessions or admissions made by offenders that never made it to court, for that very reason. I could name at least 10 offenders that I know of from my time in the job, who would have received lengthy sentences had it gone to court, but the victim refused to go ahead with the case. So you multiply that out across all of NZ and it's a bit scary to think who is out there.</li>
</ul><p>As Crazy Horse said, and Mrs AWL is a cop as well so I speak from her experience too, that very few do make it to court for those reasons, so it's not like the Police are wandering around blindly believing victims at the expense of dragging a clearly innocent man through the mud just to make the victim feel better. Everything is subject to the Solicitor General's prosecution guidelines, where something shouldn't be taken to court if there isn't a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. If cases are taken to court that clearly have no merit and everything goes pear-shaped, the offender is legally able to seek costs against the Crown, for expenses and damages which can get pretty expensive. Therefore, there is a robust process in place to ensure that only evidentially sufficient cases get before a jury. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>To clarify, when I say all cases should be treated as genuine, I mean that in the past (80's, 90's), females would come in an make a complaint of rape and the salty old Detectives would take one look at it, or listen to the story and decide that the complainant was full of shit, or was drunk, scantily dressed and asking for it and that was that. So now, if a person comes in and makes a complaint, a full statement will still be taken, scene examinations will still take place, medical examinations of the complainant will still take place, even if the complainants story doesn't seem to stack up. Sexual assault files don't get closed down early just based on a hunch or an opinion. With the right investigation (phone records, talking to witnesses, looking at CCTV) a proper false complaint can be disproved really easily. I never went out of my way to take shit or cases with insufficient evidence to court, nor did any other cop I knew. There was very little point in doing that when there was a huge backlog of cases with evidential sufficiency sitting on my desk waiting to be investigated. </p>
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<p>Only once these things have been investigated will the decision be made on whether it is likely a false complaint. That doesn't mean that the alleged offender will be blindly hauled over the coals, in fact, often we never even interviewed to the alleged offender if we could disprove the allegation by other means, because there was no point in upsetting someone unnecessarily if something clearly didn't happen. It might have been as simple as just going to see the guy, letting them know the gist of the complaint, but that we had disproved it, and asking them what their thoughts were on further action against the complainant in regards to false complaints. Absolutely the offenders were presumed innocent until guilty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cops aren't man-hating feminists who want to string all men up by the balls, and me particularly so (as any of the BOP Mafia ferners who I met a few years back might be able to attest to), but treating a rape complainant genuinely and decently until there is proof that he/she is lying is just common sense I would have thought. That is quite different to presuming an offender is guilty, it's more that the complainant has genuine intentions for sitting in front of me and telling a complete stranger about her last sexual event . When I worked crime squad, in any given weekend shifts, we'd get up to half a dozen sexual assault complaints come across our desk. This got even worse with the advent of apps like Tinder, where we got quite a few "she flirted with me online so I assumed she was well up for it" type explanations. We had plenty of jobs where the boyfriend or significant other would drag the "victim" in to the station saying she had been raped by a guy she met in town, but when the door closed, she had just cheated on him, she didn't want to make a complaint and had never wanted to come into the station in the first place. More often than not, people who made the clearly false complaints of rape (and other crimes) were suffering a tonne of other problems as well, so prosecution wasn't ever taken up until they became repeat offenders. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>So in short, sexual assault cases are a minefield, hence why I specialised in drugs and organised crime...</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="MN5" data-cid="601179" data-time="1469755652">
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<p>That's called being married....</p>
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<p>I said a few...</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Baron Silas Greenback" data-cid="601176" data-time="1469755409">
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<p>I am def advocating a default position, because it is not until a trial that the facts are known, and then how those facts are weighted depends on the presumption.</p>
<p>Innocent until proven guilty is one of the things that I feel truly passionate about. The day we move away form that is a VERY bad day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Innocent until proven guilty and letting the facts speak are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are not even related.</p>
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<p>Absolutely, it's the cornerstone of the justice system, right? I've had friends who have had false allegations levelled at them for sexual assault and domestic violence and it was bloody unpleasant watching it all unfold. Thankfully, it was properly investigated and found to be false. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>One of the biggest problems we used to face was that we'd go to speak to an alleged offender, (for any sort of offence, not just sexual) their lawyer would advise them not to make a statement, so we'd have to go with what we had in front of us, and the facts we had in putting together a prosecution case, or otherwise. Essentially you're having to make decisions with only 80% of the information available in front of you, because the other 20% doesn't want to speak to you. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>We'd get to trial 18 months down the track and offender would take the stand, give a completely plausible and reliable account of what happened and they'd be rightly acquitted. The sticking point being that had they given that account to us when we asked to speak to them, it would have never made it to court.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Baron Silas Greenback" data-cid="601176" data-time="1469755409">
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<p>I am def advocating a default position, because it is not until a trial that the facts are known, and then how those facts are weighted depends on the presumption.</p>
<p>Innocent until proven guilty is one of the things that I feel truly passionate about. The day we move away form that is a VERY bad day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Innocent until proven guilty and letting the facts speak are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are not even related.</p>
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<p>I'm not suggesting the legal system change from the presumption of innocence.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="SouthernMan" data-cid="600700" data-time="1469612364">
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<p>But the issue is that he admitted he was told no, and never received any consent. But closing statements are expected tomorrow, so will probably see a verdict either late tomorrow, or Friday. <strong>This could be a massive wake up call for men in professional sport (any young men really), who are well known for throwing their hips into everything and anything on Saturday nights.</strong></p>
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<p>Consent is a legal minefield because it is about whether the alleged offender reasonably believed that they had consent. Consent given in the heat of the moment is still consent in the cold light of day. And the law dictates that if a victim withdraws that consent at any time (even mid-stride) it suddenly goes from consensual sex to sexual assault. There is historic case-law from the 70's that involved a case where a couple were having consensual sex and she asked him to stop about fifteen minutes in, he carried on for a short time and was ultimately convicted of rape. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The way the law currently sits is that consent given by a person who is really drunk is technically not really consent at all. In theory this is fine, because it's obviously intended to relate to people who are borderline comatose from alcohol.It also fits when it is a sober predator raping an intoxicated girl after a night out, but when both parties are really drunk, I struggle with who is and isn't giving consent? You only need to walk through any bar or club on a Saturday night to see dozens of couples hooking up after a few too many drinks, and everything looks happy. It turns it into a potential nightmare for young men who are equally as drunk, believe consent, but then have accusations levelled at them that their "partner" was too drunk to legally give consent. </p>
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<p>The pic below isn't from New Zealand, but it's in theory consistent with the New Zealand law as it stands</p>
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<p><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/content.washingtonexaminer.biz/web-producers/072215JakeJosie.jpg" alt="072215JakeJosie.jpg"></p> -
<p>although doesn't it apply for her too? Obviously rape of a man is not really seen that often, but....</p>
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<p>Absolutely agree in all claims being taken seriously, AND in innocent until proven guilty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One thing that makes my blood boil though, is the line of thinking 'if x truly happened why didn't he/she do or say y'.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Everyone reacts differently to trauma of any kind, and this is taking a whole lot of factors into account.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If the brain can process the event. How fast (if at all) it can get past the what the hell is going on/I can't believe this/why me bit.</p>
<p>If their life or wellbeing is at serious risk.</p>
<p>If there is a method of escape or not, or if all that can be done is mitigation.</p>
<p>If it is something that has happened before, how they coped, and what the outcome was (PTSD)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A massive surge of adrenaline doesn't mean shit when the brain is scrambled to the point of paralysis.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aucklandwarlord" data-cid="601190" data-time="1469759969">
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<p>Sorry, I wrote that post at about 2am, after a few beers, so I couldn't really be arsed scouring the internet for links. Those statistics were from memory, based on research online that I had done of other studies for a uni paper I wrote a few years back. They are probably 'give or take' a little bit, but my general gist was that in regards to sexual assault complaints, only a very minor percentage of them result in the conviction of the offender. There are a heap of reasons for that, but most commonly:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul><li>Except for stranger rape cases (masked intruder, dragged into bushes in public place etc) they often involve the alleged victim and offender knowing one another, which makes things murky and puts strong social dynamics into play, particularly when it happens within groups of friends, so victims either don't want to go ahead with complaints, or else you get differing accounts, depending on which side of the net a witness is sitting on</li>
<li>Alcohol is more often than not involved, which makes memories hazy and opens up a complainant to being slaughtered on the stand for being too drunk</li>
<li>They may be historic, therefore evidence has been lost or the complainant just wants to have their complaint noted and then get some appropriate help (counselling etc)</li>
<li>A victim often just wants to hear her story heard and have a medical check up to make sure she will have no ongoing problems (this is often the case in cases like the one before the court at the moment where it involves alcohol and he said/she said circumstances)</li>
<li>They may involve a family member and the victim doesn't want to tear the family apart, or is getting a lot of pressure on them from the extended family to withdraw the complaint.</li>
<li>Often they just don't want the trauma of having to relive everything 2 years down the track. We had some really cut and dry cases with great evidence, even to the point of confessions or admissions made by offenders that never made it to court, for that very reason. I could name at least 10 offenders that I know of from my time in the job, who would have received lengthy sentences had it gone to court, but the victim refused to go ahead with the case. So you multiply that out across all of NZ and it's a bit scary to think who is out there.</li>
</ul><p>As Crazy Horse said, and Mrs AWL is a cop as well so I speak from her experience too, that very few do make it to court for those reasons, so it's not like the Police are wandering around blindly believing victims at the expense of dragging a clearly innocent man through the mud just to make the victim feel better. Everything is subject to the Solicitor General's prosecution guidelines, where something shouldn't be taken to court if there isn't a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. If cases are taken to court that clearly have no merit and everything goes pear-shaped, the offender is legally able to seek costs against the Crown, for expenses and damages which can get pretty expensive. Therefore, there is a robust process in place to ensure that only evidentially sufficient cases get before a jury. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>To clarify, when I say all cases should be treated as genuine, I mean that in the past (80's, 90's), females would come in an make a complaint of rape and the salty old Detectives would take one look at it, or listen to the story and decide that the complainant was full of shit, or was drunk, scantily dressed and asking for it and that was that. So now, if a person comes in and makes a complaint, a full statement will still be taken, scene examinations will still take place, medical examinations of the complainant will still take place, even if the complainants story doesn't seem to stack up. Sexual assault files don't get closed down early just based on a hunch or an opinion. With the right investigation (phone records, talking to witnesses, looking at CCTV) a proper false complaint can be disproved really easily. I never went out of my way to take shit or cases with insufficient evidence to court, nor did any other cop I knew. There was very little point in doing that when there was a huge backlog of cases with evidential sufficiency sitting on my desk waiting to be investigated. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Only once these things have been investigated will the decision be made on whether it is likely a false complaint. That doesn't mean that the alleged offender will be blindly hauled over the coals, in fact, often we never even interviewed to the alleged offender if we could disprove the allegation by other means, because there was no point in upsetting someone unnecessarily if something clearly didn't happen. It might have been as simple as just going to see the guy, letting them know the gist of the complaint, but that we had disproved it, and asking them what their thoughts were on further action against the complainant in regards to false complaints. Absolutely the offenders were presumed innocent until guilty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cops aren't man-hating feminists who want to string all men up by the balls, and me particularly so (as any of the BOP Mafia ferners who I met a few years back might be able to attest to), but treating a rape complainant genuinely and decently until there is proof that he/she is lying is just common sense I would have thought. That is quite different to presuming an offender is guilty, it's more that the complainant has genuine intentions for sitting in front of me and telling a complete stranger about her last sexual event . When I worked crime squad, in any given weekend shifts, we'd get up to half a dozen sexual assault complaints come across our desk. This got even worse with the advent of apps like Tinder, where we got quite a few "she flirted with me online so I assumed she was well up for it" type explanations. We had plenty of jobs where the boyfriend or significant other would drag the "victim" in to the station saying she had been raped by a guy she met in town, but when the door closed, she had just cheated on him, she didn't want to make a complaint and had never wanted to come into the station in the first place. More often than not, people who made the clearly false complaints of rape (and other crimes) were suffering a tonne of other problems as well, so prosecution wasn't ever taken up until they became repeat offenders. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>So in short, sexual assault cases are a minefield, hence why I specialised in drugs and organised crime...</p>
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<p>Good post, agree with it all.</p>
<p>But I am still very dubious about the stats about how many are reported. I have actually done a bit of searching on it and nothing has come back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What is a fact though is that stats on these things have been misrepresented numerous times, even here on the fern previously with one stupid claim about the prevalence of women being sexually assaulted. Therefore I treat all 'stats' on this with utmost skepticism.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Mokey" data-cid="601201" data-time="1469761933">
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<p>Absolutely agree in all claims being taken seriously, AND in innocent until proven guilty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One thing that makes my blood boil though, is the line of thinking 'if x truly happened why didn't he/she do or say y'.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Everyone reacts differently to trauma of any kind, and this is taking a whole lot of factors into account.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If the brain can process the event. How fast (if at all) it can get past the what the hell is going on/I can't believe this/why me bit.</p>
<p>If their life or wellbeing is at serious risk.</p>
<p>If there is a method of escape or not, or if all that can be done is mitigation.</p>
<p>If it is something that has happened before, how they coped, and what the outcome was (PTSD)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A massive surge of adrenaline doesn't mean shit when the brain is scrambled to the point of paralysis.</p>
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<p>A lawyer in Wellington a few years back asked why a rape victim didn't just close her legs when she was being raped by a bouncer in town (he was later convicted).</p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9397528/Rape-victim-could-have-closed-legs-says-lawyer'>http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9397528/Rape-victim-could-have-closed-legs-says-lawyer</a></p> -
<p>As a side note.. this case shows why you should never ever talk to cops until you absolutely have to. </p>
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<p>When my kids are old enough they will watch this video. Highly recommend everyone spend the time watching it.</p>
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<p>Think this was posted on TSF previously?</p> -
<p>It was but well worth another share. Excellent vid.</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Baron Silas Greenback" data-cid="601205" data-time="1469762541">
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<p>As a side note.. this case shows why you should never ever talk to cops until you absolutely have to. </p>
<p> </p>
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<p>Are you talking about in a capacity as a suspect/offender, or in general, i.e if you were a witness to something? I have every intention of watching the video, but don't have 48 minutes at the moment. I watched the first 5 minutes and it looked interesting.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aucklandwarlord" data-cid="601209" data-time="1469762904">
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<p>Are you talking about in a capacity as a suspect/offender, or in general, i.e if you were a witness to something? I have every intention of watching the video, but don't have 48 minutes at the moment. I watched the first 5 minutes and it looked interestin</p>
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<p>The genral gist is never unless you are reporting a crime or are uvery obviously just a witness.</p>
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<p>It appears in the Kuggeleijn case what he said to police is ... not helping him</p> -