• [UK] Man cleared of rape by one judge. Is ordered to pay compensation by another
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A woman has won £80,000 in damages from a man who had been cleared of raping her after a night out in Fife. The woman, who cannot be named, had sued Stephen Coxen, who is now 23, from Bury in Greater Manchester. The second year student said she was raped after a night out in St Andrews in 2013 by Mr Coxen, who she had met earlier in the evening. Mr Coxen had denied the charges and in November 2015 a jury found the case against him not proven. But now, in a case understood to be the first of its kind in Scotland, a sheriff in a civil action has ruled Mr Coxen raped the woman, known as Miss M, and demanded he pay damages. The civil action was heard at the Personal Injury Court in Edinburgh. Civil cases requires a lower standard of proof than a criminal case, with judgments made on on the balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-45760372 What the fuck is actually becoming of society today.
The thing is though, rape convictions of those reported are only about 2-3%, so it doesn't necessarily strike me as a bad thing that a lower standard of proof is required in civil cases, as only about 5% of reported rapes are found to be false. I have a Dutch friend who was raped by a famous YouTuber, and she's really struggling to get a conviction.
Yeah! How about we just go ahead and assume everybody accused is guilty until they can prove their innocence!!!
I'm not talking about criminal cases. I'm just saying that it's incredibly difficult to attain conviction in criminal court, so I sort of understand why civil cases might be a good route for victims to go.
with judgments made on on the balance of probabilities Ah. Great to hear that UK law is ahead of its time. Using proof, evidence, and actual grounded facts is soo last century. Like eew, hello... progress is calling.
So they can get every penny out of a proven innocent person? If anything the bloke in this case should get compensation for her fucking up his life.
Just because the consequences of criminal court are more severe doesn't mean a settlement from a civil court can't fuck over a person. How about we address the factors affecting the rape conviction rates rather than adjusting the conviction rates so that we can meet a quota.
The article doesn't say he was 'proven innocent'. It says he was 'not proven guilty'. There's a big, big difference, and the title implies something the article doesn't say.
This is female privilege in a nutshell.
Actually, this is Scottish Law, not UK law in general. Scotland juries can either find someone Guilty, Not Guilty, or Not Proven. Not proven just means that they don't have enough evidence to convict as the evidence available cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt, that he was guilty, but that there is enough evidence to suggest that he is guilty. If he'd have been found not guilty, then its likely that the civil case in this thread would not have gone ahead.
I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure the amount of men getting away with rape is enormously higher than women getting away with false rape accusations, and I don't think I'd call that privilege. Like people have repeatedly posted above, him initially not being convicted does not mean he's innocent, either. Courts don't decide if people are guilty or innocent, they try to decide if they're guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and are often imperfect at it. Rape cases are enormously hard to prove and jumping to the conclusion that she's making things up without all the evidence is just as concerning as people who jump to the conclusion people are guilty in the same way
It'a not like this is unheard of, OJ Simpson in the US got acquitted on the criminal case of murder but was ruled against in the civil case and had to pay out in the end. Civil and criminal courts are different beasts, it's always been like this
The privilege of being dragged through the dirt by dozens or hundreds of people who assume you're lying you mean?
My mum has been raped twice, and the circumstances mean she'd never have been able to attain conviction, as she was too traumatised and upset on the night of both to get a rape kit sorted, so forgive me for thinking the burden of proof should be less high in a civil court.
You must live in another reality, then, it's extremely more common to get away with any crime as a woman than as man. It is privilege because you hardly ever get to see women facing jail for rape, much less a fine.
While I'm sure that comes in handy sometimes, what's the criteria for a "not proven" ruling? What sort of safeguards are there against the jury simply giving someone the "not proven" instead of "not guilty"? Also just seems a bit wrong at its base - either you have enough evidence, or else you don't.
It's true that women are jailed less for the same crimes and also convicted less often, but men are privileged in other ways - we should be aiming to address both sides of the equality debate, not just prioritisng one.
I guess my issue with it is that you can’t always “unprove” claims and evidence, and you shouldn’t have to do that to clear your name. The onus isn’t on you to have an alibi, it’s on the accuser having enough evidence to find you guilty. I can see why you would want to not imply that someone was lying, but that shouldn’t result in you implying “Guilty, but not proven”.
I brought it up once before. It's relevant because it explains how the issue has affected those around me and that it makes it more important to my mind.
I guess I’ll just emphasise that I hadn’t even read about your mother. I’m sorry that happened to her, obviously.
If you were falsely accused of rape would you be okay with taking the fall and having your life ruined because "only about 5% are false"..? If your answer is no then maybe you're letting emotion cloud your judgment. What happened to your mother is terrible and I'm sorry, but you should not use her tragedy as an arguement point for convicting innocent people.
It always feels like some people here are almost rabidly on one side or the other. Is it really that difficult to understand that rape victims might feel awful when they’re treated like liars while also understanding that being falsely accused is awful? I also feel like some people here are really quick to assume a rape accusation is false. One in twenty rape accusations are false, that’s 5%. That is more than is the case with most other criminal offences, but it’s not nearly high enough to question the motives of possible victims so ‘aggresively’, I guess.
Ah, so the real issue here is that Scottish Law is bullshit.
You're probably right, but it's really difficult to separate the two, if you get me? My only point is that physical evidence is very rare in rape cases, so credible, sincere allegations are often all we have to go on. I don't think that should be admissible in criminal court, or at least it shouldn't be sufficient for conviction, but I do believe that civil court should have a lower burden of proof due to it being less devastating to receive a fine than to go to prison - that's all I'm saying.
As already said, someone winning a criminal case against them, then losing a civil case against them about the same thing, isn't unheard of nor too unusual, if the not proven ruling didn't exist in Scottish law, then the same resultmight have happened anyway.
My point is that is never acceptable for an innocent person to be wrongly convicted. It does not matter if .005% of rape allegations are false and the civil penalty is a penny. Work towards solving the actual issues, don't take the easy route because it'll be "mostly right"
He hasn't been convicted though - not really. My understanding is that it wouldn't go on his criminal record because it's a civil case. I understand that may be considered semantic, but I guess it's the same way that when people talk about the Kavanaugh stuff in terms of him being 'innocent until proven guilty', many here criticise that narrative, including me, as it implies him not getting a job would be tantamount to a conviction. I know it's not the same thing, but there are some parallels, as there's no physical evidence with the Kavanaugh stuff either - just a victims testimony. Ford has been described as sincere and persuasive, just like how the sheriff described this man.
I’m gonna say that your “0.005%” is just unrealistic, if we’re going for that sort of false conviction rate, no one would ever be put in jail. I’d rather let some criminals go than convict innocent people, but I doubt any country has a false conviction rate much under 1%. If you applied even those requirements to civil court, nothing would ever get done.
I am not arguing to achieve a rate of .005% false allegation convictions, I agree that is highly unrealistic. My point is only that you should not find comfort in an innocent person being found guilty only because the frequency is low. Acknowledge that it will occur but do not encourage it to.
I mean, the burden of proof is much higher for capitol punishment in America, and even then, 4% of innocent people are executed by the state, so I don't really know how to solve it. I mean, guilty people out in the world endangers innocent people, as they're more likely to offend out there, obviously, but putting innocent people in jail too often kills trust in our justice system.
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