Have You Reached a Verdict?
I sat on the jury for one of the 2% of rape cases that make it to trial
Trigger warning: This essay discusses rape, sexual assault, and the scrutiny victims face in the justice system.
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As I witnessed a man being bundled into a police van outside a restaurant in London Fields, a woman lifted her child and said: ‘Look, they’re taking away the bad guy.’ She turned towards me.
‘How exciting!’ she said.
‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘It’s sad.’
The man in the police van had been caught in a drug sting. Now he would continue his young life in the prison system. My guess is that drug dealing wasn’t his first choice of career.
I envied how this woman believed morality and legality were perfectly in sync. The reality is that many drug supply chains are just as evil as the supply chains of the clothes we have on our backs and the toxicity in ultra-processed foods is far worse for us than some illegal drugs. Yet we don’t hold up our children and point at the big executives selling sugary drinks that cause obesity, diabetes, and heart disease and go: ‘Look, there’s the bad guy.’
When I worked on the phone lines for a homelessness charity, a recently released prisoner called because he had nowhere to go. We couldn’t help him. He said he’d have no choice but to commit another crime. I understood his position.
Yet many wouldn’t. Laws are a collective agreement about what is good and bad. However, over time, the laws end up guiding morality instead of morality guiding the laws. Therefore, in most people’s view, if you break the law you are bad.
However, when it comes to sexual assault, this moral certainty doesn’t apply. It’s only in these crimes that we hear about ‘the grey area’. It’s only in these crimes that the victim’s morality is questioned and they’re put on trial alongside the perpetrator. Meanwhile, the perpetrator is often humanised in ways that other criminals aren’t.
Rape is a crime that’s committed by those from all walks of life. It transcends classes. Rapists can be people that feel familiar to us. People we like, people we think are normal. Sometimes, we feel sorry for them when they’re accused of that crime. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was in the grey area.
Statistically, rape is a crime that you get away with. 2% of reported rape cases in the UK make it to trial and 50% of those lead to a conviction. One in 100 women who report the crime sees justice. That doesn’t take into account all the women who are raped and don’t report it.
I understand why these numbers are what they are. Rape is a crime that’s hard to prove. In 46% of female rape cases, the perpetrator is an intimate partner. It takes a brave woman to come forward and I witnessed just how brave when I sat on the jury for one of the 2% of rape cases to make it to trial at London’s Old Bailey.