£80000 for civil rape conviction

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Not sure how I feel about this.

Man sued for £80000 damages in civil case after being found not guilty in criminal case.

WTF. I hope he appeals and wins.

How long before there are more fictitious claims for a quick payout.

Woman wins £80,000 in damages from man cleared of raping her in St Andrews

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-ea...

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Derek Smith said:

What's the problem? She made a claim for damages and won. Isn't that what the civil courts are for?

Why do you hope he wins, especially when he wasn't cleared of rape as you suggest.? The criminal court found the case 'not proved'.

Good on her. She's got nothing out of this evidently, other than a sense of justice.

Guilt is a binary subject you either are guilty or aren’t guilty. Not proven is not guilty. Proven is guilty. You can’t be partly guilty.

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singlecoil said:

carinaman said:

KungFuPanda said:

Derek Smith said:

What's the problem? She made a claim for damages and won. Isn't that what the civil courts are for?

Why do you hope he wins, especially when he wasn't cleared of rape as you suggest.? The criminal court found the case 'not proved'.

Good on her. She's got nothing out of this evidently, other than a sense of justice.

She got nothing except a sense of justice and £80k.

In the article she says she's unlikely to see much of that due to legal costs.

And that's if he actually has £80,000. Not many 23 year old blokes can put their hands on that kind of money.

I’m sure they would put a claim against any future earning he makes so he will pay it one way or another.

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desolate said:

MB140 said:

Not sure how I feel about this.



WTF. I hope he appeals and wins.

Didn't take long to find out how you felt about it .

Edited by desolate on Saturday 6th October 01:36

Sorry I didn’t explain myself so well. What I meant.

I’m not sure how I feel about someone who is cleared in a criminal case ( not getting in to an argument of not proven so he isn’t innocent. I’ve expressed my opinion already) but is then dragged in to a civil court (as I understand has a lower burden of proof) to have a second bite of the cherry so to speak along with a chance of financial gain for something that has already been proven not guilty.

I hope he appeals because.

She took him home, she followed him out the club he was ejected from. He wasn’t found guilty in a criminal court.


ETA, I don’t want to downplay rape it’s a serious offence and I feel truly sorry for the victims but it seems the burden of consent is getting ridiculous. Soon you will need a signed contract before you buy a lady a drink to prove she is sober and consents.

Having seen the consequences of a vindictive woman falsely accusing my stepdad I am very wary of false allegations nowadays. As posted earlier by someone else. She drank a st load of alcohol, supposedly can’t remember leaving the club, can’t remember how she got to her home. But can remember and can be seen as believeable in a civil case. It just doesn’t add up. Also as said previously. Was he just as stfaced as her.


My step dads case:

1) My stepdad and his wife separated 20 years ago. They divorce she takes the cash he keeps the house. She disappears abroad and left my stepdad to raise their son.

2) He meets my mum 10 years ago and he moves from Crew down to Nottingham, his son wants to stay in crew as he has a job so he stays in my stepdads house free of charge.

3) Toyboy lover in Portugal turfs stepdads exwife out on her ass (she’s been playing around), so being penniless and homeless contacts her son who agrees for her to move in with him (my stepdads house).

4) Stepdad doesn’t mind as the son is stil living there free of charge but then son meets a girl and he gets offered a job down south so moves out.

5) stepdads Ex wife now deciders it’s her house, she was never compensated properly in the divorce and she’s not moving any ware.

6) 4 year legal battle ensues to the point a judge gives her 10% and must be out the house in x months after it’s sold (think it was 3 months). To which she agrees. 6 months later she isn’t going anywhere refuses to let estate agents in to the house (she’s living there rent free). Cue more legal ranglings until a judge has enough and gives her a definite date to vacate and as a kicker tells her that a market rate of rent will be deducted from her 10% for each month she is living there.

7) Three hours after the judgement she is in a police station accusing my stepdad of raping her some 30 years previously (remember back then you couldn’t rape your wife)

8) 2 years later. Multiple visits to the police ( whom my stepdad says from day one had decided he was guilty were nasty evil little vindictive bds (one even said while escorting him to the toilet once that he was sure he would get sent down and get raped inside himself). Multiple interviews £20k in legal bills his court date was here.

9) Opening day the judge ask my stepdads barrister if he was ready to start. “No I haven’t had the following bits of evidence disclosed from the cps”. More legal wrangling and cps are told to find the evidence before lunchtime. One being her medicle records.

(Remember the national news scandal early this year about certain cps cases with the cps withholding evidence, my stepdads case is one of the cases being reviewed as to why the cps had the evidence all along but never disclosed it)

10) Surprise surprise cps have all the stuff in a box they just happens to find down stairs. “Sorry judge”. Court proceedings delayed for 24 hours to allow barrister to read documents.

11) My stepdads barrister points out that from her medical records (she was diagnosed with mental health issues way before they divorced) that at the time of the alleged rape the ex wife was infact in a government mental health facility and drugged up to her eyeballs on all sorts of antipsychotic medications and had been for nearly theee months.

12) Case is thrown out, judge gives cps a right earful and apologised to my stepdad.

It was quite clearly from the start a vindictive evil woman trying to get one over because she lost the case over the house (to which she was still living in at the point of the rape trial).



So what’s been the effect of this 3 year ordeal.

My stepdad is now on medication for anxiety and depression. He went from being a very bubbly outgoing person to a virtual recluse scared of his own shadow. He now virtually won’t talk to another woman without someone else present for fear of what the think of him or being accused of anything else.

It’s clearly taken a toll on my mother as well. Who has stood by him. It nearly bankrupted them and has forced them to remortgage the house to cover the legal costs.

He has lost all contact with his son who believed his mother.

Around 9 months ago she was finally dragged kicking screaming and biting the bailiffs as they removed her from the house. It sold a couple of months ago. Basically she never got a penny because of the rent deductions. Infact she owes him money for rent which he can’t be bothered to go after. My mother on the other hand is livid and wants revenge.

To top it off she had virtually destroyed the inside of the home. Holes in walls you name it. Cost about £10k to get it back to standard and my stepdad and dad (best friends and in their retirement) went and did a lot of the work.


So am I careful and suspicious when I hear someone accused of rape. You bet I am. I have sympathy for the genuine victims. It’s an abhorrent crime not normally about the sex but the control and fear. But I am also rueful about someone who is drinking to excess, takes someone home gets into bed with them (all willingly) and then in effect I changes thier mind in the morning.

I’m sorry but it is practically impossible to prove what went on once two consenting adults are in bed together it’s a pure he said she said situation and you are in effect ending someone’s life with a rape conviction with no evidence other than someone’s word who was happy to get themselves in to bed in the first place.

In the case of the bbc article posted in the op I just don’t see enough evidence to support the outcome.

Anyways sorry for the rant. It’s an emotive subject and one I have seen the false accusation side of first hand.

Edited by MB140 on Saturday 6th October 08:02

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Bill said:

MB140 said:

She took him home, she followed him out the club he was ejected from. He wasn’t found guilty in a criminal court.

Re-read it. He followed her home and forced his way in while she stalled for time, then raped her.

Doesn’t say followed at all. Following someone is creepy. It says she can’t remember getting home. Turned round and saw him there.

If she can’t remember getting home who’s to say they didn’t get in a taxi and he accompanied her home together. Like many a pissed man/woman will do on a night out.

He may well have followed her but again where’s the evidence. She can’t remember.


Look I will say this, if he did rape her then he deserves a lot more than just a fine but yet again we are hearing about two people intoxicated to the point of memory loss and the woman accusing the man of rape. What’s to say she didn’t rape him then.

It just stinks to me that this woman seems to be ruining his life on what at best can be described as very very shaky evidence. The word of someone so pissed they can’t remember stuff. This is life changing for him.

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Bill said:

MB140 said:

It just stinks to me that this woman seems to be ruining his life on what at best can be described as very very shaky evidence. The word of someone so pissed they can’t remember stuff. This is life changing for him.

It's life changing for her too... It is his word against hers. It wasn't proven beyond reasonable doubt, but the civil court felt she was more believable than him.

Yes I agree if it happened as she described its life changing for her too.

My other main concern is the vindictive people about to come out with false accusations and if there more believeable a quick £xxxxxx payout in civil court.

Seems dodgy to me getting paid by a civil court for something already found not guilty in a criminal court.

Fair does if he is convicted in a criminal court and then the victim wants financial compensation from the civil court. No problems with that. But to lose in a criminal court then have a second bite at civil court seems wrong.


I was burgled a quite a few years ago, scrote that did it was found not guilty (he did it known local thief selling stolen goods from my house caught red handed in effect). Does that mean I can now sue him for compensation in the local civil court. If that’s the case the civil courts would be full of people suing people with no evidence.

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PorkInsider said:

MB140 said:

Seems dodgy to me getting paid by a civil court for something already found not guilty in a criminal court.

He wasn’t found ‘not guilty’.

FFS and he wasn’t found guilty. This argument can keep going on forever.

Guilt is binary. You are either guilty or not guilty. Not proven is a load of bks.

Proven = Guilty
Not proven = Not guilty

Arrrrrrh

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singlecoil said:

Oakey said:

"remember back then you couldn’t rape your wife"

What does this mean?

It means there was no such offence.

Back then it wasn’t illegal to force yourself on your wife. Stupid fking thing and thankfully we have progressed since then. The point I was trying to make is that

“Even if he had forced himself on her (and he most definitely didn’t) back then it wasn’t a crime so how come he was being prosecuted under modern law for an act that at the time of her alleged rape wasn’t illegal”

Edited by MB140 on Saturday 6th October 16:31

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NewbishDelight said:

JimSuperSix said:

MB140 said:

FFS and he wasn’t found guilty. This argument can keep going on forever.

Guilt is binary. You are either guilty or not guilty. Not proven is a load of bks.

Proven = Guilty
Not proven = Not guilty

Arrrrrrh

I don't think anybody on the jury thought that those 2 offences were absolutely not commited, in fact they seemed quite likely, just that the prosecution hadn't done enough to prove them so in the end we pretty much had to return "not proven" instead of guilty or not-guilty.

This is the crux of the issue - I think that OP is confusing the laws of England and Wales with that of Scotland.

In Scotland you have Guilty (obvious), Not Guilty (obvious) and Not Proven.

Not Proven does not mean that the defendant is Not Guilty, merely that there is insufficient evidence to prove his guilt.

And therefore if there isn’t enough evidence to prove his guilt he must be not guilty or not proven. It’s irrelevant if you call it not guilty or not proven because at the end of the day you haven’t proven his guilt so therefore ihes ‘not’ guilty. The rest is arguing over the wording of not proven or not guilty.

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Look at the implications of just being accused.

Nike are currently seriously looking at cutting ties with Cristiano Ronaldo because some woman has accused him.

I don’t like the twonk personally as he’s a smarmy diving c**t when it comes to playing football. But he does a lot for charity (admittedly probably tax relief) but I don’t care about his reasons.

What I do care about is this man is having his livelihood threatened just because of an allegation. That’s not right. By all means once found guilty throw the book at him.

In this case we are talking millions of pounds in lost income based solely on some woman’s word. No proof or even charges filed yet and Nike are worried.

It’s just wrong. Plain wrong.

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Sa Calobra said:

poo at Paul's said:

"during the evening she drank four cans of cider, a bottle of rose wine, a bottle of champagne and three glasses of sparkling wine mixed with vodka"


That's a serious amount of booze for anyone, never mind an 18 year old. So on the one hand court clearly believed she was not competent to consent....? And yet able to remember the details to be seen as "cogent, compelling and persuasive".

Unsavoury episode indeed. No mention of the amount of booze he had consumed. If he was similarly ratarsed, could that be used in mitigation of straightforward defence? Was it used in such a way at the criminal trial?

As the father of a daughter, I shudder at the thought of her drinking so much in one sitting so to speak. I'd be paralytic after the cider and bottle of rose!


Sad case all round.

Where does it specify what she drank?

In the article in the OP.

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janesmith1950 said:

And if your false claim does go to court and you're acquitted and you earn anything remotely sensible, you'll have had to fork out for your own private legal defence costs and you'll be reimbursed 20% of the cost.

A serious allegation that goes to crown court trial could literally see you lose your house to keep your innocence.

Pretty much what I pointed out earlier in this thread. Those saying that false accusations are rare. That’s bloody irrelevant. It nearly bankrupted my stepdad and mum. I would love to get my hands on the lying that falsely accused my stepdad. More so I would like to kick the living st out of the cps lawyer who decided to withhold evidence until forced by the judge to hand it over. I’ve always said I would never strike a women unless it was in self defence, I wouldn’t even lay a finger on my ex wife but those two lying conniving s I would happily give a punch in the face.

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Well it appears that he has found a way not to pay the lady in question the £80k. I can't decide if I'm happy or angry about it. My initial feelings were that he shouldn't have had to pay her the £80k in the first place. He was found not guilty/not proven (lets not start another argument over that).

Either way he lost and the courts said he should, but £80k is a lot of money (life changing level of debt to most people for something he wasn't found guilty of). I'm sure the consequences of being declared bankrupt will have an influence on his life but probably less so than spending the next 20 years paying it off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-e...

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EazyDuz said:

surveyor_101 said:

for not proven 80k seems alot!

Should have been more like 10k as having read the story he at best looks like a idiot.


80k was crazy as he is not a man of means or from a rich family how is he suppose to pay that!

No one wins with such a crazy award! Scots seem to have gone for a USA style approach.

The wealth of the man makes no difference.

It clearly does. If it had been £20k then he probably could have taken a loan out and the lady would have gotten her money. As nobody is going to lend him £80k then she has ended up with nothing.