Presumption of innocence (Rape)

[allergictocheese]

JagLover said:

And if they were not unconscious due to alcohol but simply cannot remember having given consent?

Hence why the best way of describing these cases is retrospective withdrawal of consent.

Having no memory of giving consent doesn't then mean consent or a reasonable belief of it couldn't have been given. See the Ched Evans case- the victim didn't remember having sex, yet one of the defendants was acquitted.

[SamHH]

JagLover said:

The issue is not "evil" men taking advantage of unconscious females. But a man pulling a woman who is capable of conversation and freely giving consent but has little or no memory of what happened the next day.

JagLover said:

And if they were not unconscious due to alcohol but simply cannot remember having given consent?

Hence why the best way of describing these cases is retrospective withdrawal of consent.

No doubt it is possible for a person to consent to something, then later disagree that they consented, or lie about whether they consented.

But the gist of your comments does not appear to leave any room for a situation where someone is drunk, but not to the point of unconsciousness, and does not consent. Yet it seems quite plausible that a person could be very drunk, and so not have the capacity to consent, without being unconscious, don't you think?

[JagLover]

SamHH said:

No doubt it is possible for a person to consent to something, then later disagree that they consented, or lie about whether they consented.

But the gist of your comments does not appear to leave any room for a situation where someone is drunk, but not to the point of unconsciousness, and does not consent. Yet it seems quite plausible that a person could be very drunk, and so not have the capacity to consent, without being unconscious, don't you think?

That is possible if they are virtually insensible, but the danger is in assuming anyone who has suffered from a blackout is in that state when most are not.

“You can't really tell if someone is having a blackout until the next day when they can't recall what happened,” Dr. Smith says. “Because the short-term memory (of the past several minutes) is still intact, someone in a blackout can still engage in activities and look normal...well, drunk, but awake, and talking, moving about, and making decisions—but not necessarily good ones"

Some girls have suffered blackouts after 4-5 shots.

[SamHH]

JagLover said:

That is possible if they are virtually insensible, but the danger is in assuming anyone who has suffered from a blackout is in that state when most are not.

In that case, I'm not sure what you are protesting against. The DPP's discussion of the guidance doesn't seem to make that assumption. Nor, I don't think, does the law (even where the complainant was unconscious the presumption is rebuttable). So what's the problem?

Edited by SamHH on Saturday 31st January 13:37

[anonymous-user]

I wonder if there'd be as much of an out cry if the DPP were male.