Last week, the Chronicle reported the attack after police appealed for information on two men accused of dragging a woman into a nature reserve and raping her.
But a frustrated Chief Inspector Joe Wrigley told us on Monday: "The rape didn't happen. I want to reassure the public that there are not two rapists at large, lurking in Central Park.
"We had the complaint formally withdrawn and we will investigate whether she should be prosecuted.
"I want this to serve as a warning to people – if you make false allegations we will investigate you and seek to prosecute."
Mr Wrigley said the rape became their main priority and that detectives were pulled off other cases to assist.
"We do devote a great deal of time and energy to these cases, including e-fits, medical examinations, taking evidential statements, seeking further witnesses, building up intelligence and so on.
"There is an awful lot of stuff. To find it has been wasted is so frustrating."
Police had also issued an e-fit of an alleged suspect.
Ch Insp Wrigley went on to reiterate that people should be careful, use their common sense and stay in well-lit areas when walking through Chelmsford's park, but said this false allegation has created unnecessary fear among the public.
He added: "I think it's quite safe to walk through Central Park at most times but you can never say never.
"People have suffered horrible crimes at the hands of horrible people, but when somebody makes false allegations, it affects perception of what an area might be like.
"It's just not on. Now we have to repair the damage to the community built up by this false allegation."
During the investigation into wasting police time, someone will have to calculate how much this operation cost the police.
"We spent many hours investigating the crime," said Mr Wrigley.
"The reasons for making such false allegations are many.
"I would guess some people do it to seek attention, or when they have done something and are afraid of telling the truth, like they had consensual sex and say they were raped, to prevent themselves from criticism.
"I would like to add that type of rape, where a stranger or strangers takes hold of a woman or man they have never met before and subjects them to rape, is extremely rare.
"The vast majority occur within a domestic violence scenario. Generally the perpetrator is known to the victim.
"But where people do have genuine complaints of crime we will pull out all the stops to investigate as fully as possible.
"I would not wish to discourage anybody from making a complaint where a crime has occurred."
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29 comments:
Why is it even up for discussion? Of course this liar needs to be charged and sent to prison for years.
Are the police there to be wind-up toys for a criminal's amusement?
dahvie vanity raped kerligirl13! omg! http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/kerligirl13
Instead of an e-fit, she fit.
For those that don't know what an "e-fit" is, as mentioned in the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-FIT
Anonymous said...
Why is it even up for discussion? Of course this liar needs to be charged and sent to prison for years.
Are the police there to be wind-up toys for a criminal's amusement?
Jul 19, 2010 12:48:00 AM
They are wind up toys for the amusement of feminists.
For what other alleged crime are police so frequently used as the wind-up toys of some of our citizens? Yet, after the false accuser has made them do their dance, the police still insist they'll do the same thing the next time a false accuser decides to wind them up.
Archivist said...
For what other alleged crime are police so frequently used as the wind-up toys of some of our citizens? Yet, after the false accuser has made them do their dance, the police still insist they'll do the same thing the next time a false accuser decides to wind them up.
Jul 19, 2010 7:59:00 AM
"For what other alleged crime are police so frequently used as the wind-up toys of some of our citizens?"
Oh, oh , oh, I think I know the answer. Ummm could it be sexual assault, even accusation(s) for sexual assault?
In case there is someone reading who I haven't already annoyed with my little pet theory that there are as many falsified kidnap/rape reports as there are actual ones, and my (rather limited) efforts to do searches via local news sources (that have reported an FRA) to see if there are other rape reports within the local area in recent months, here's the results from this one:
First off, on New Year's Day, a teenage girl claims to have been raped (for arguments sake, let's consider this "unknown" case as an actual rape, shall we): BRENTWOOD: Man bailed following rape claims
Next we have a story (previously covered here at FRS) of another false stranger-rape, in which a husband and wife tried to lure a young man into sex, then she cried rape when the young man backed out: March 25 MALDON: Man and wife jailed over false rape claim
And, in the other account of rape in the region this year, a woman claims to have been raped by a homeless man (I'm assuming he was a stranger to her, and that she did not voluntarily accompany him into a derelict site) on April 13: CHELMSFORD: Homeless man charged with rape at derelict Marconi site
Out of four reports of such rapes this year in this local area, two are known (definitively) to have been falsified.
So, there you have it, further support for my theory that when it comes to reports kidnap/rapes by strangers, there are likely as many falsified accounts as there are actual rapes at two each (and, that's assuming both "unknown" accounts to have been rapes).
Archivist, there is an excellent commentary in today's Times. Unfortunately Times Online is now subscription only, i.e. you have to pay. However, I am sufficiently motivated to type the whole thing up from my newspaper. Here ya go. It's on page 22 if anyone has a copy. Monday July 19th. You might want to turn this into a post of its own. I've copied it out verbatim.
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Anonymity in rape trials is essential
Sir, In the Commons debate on anonymity for rape defendants Maria Eagle, the Shadow Justice Minister, warned that it would be signalling to victims that they will not be believed (report, July 9). The argument is both tendentious and speculative, and furnishes no answer to the main points in favour.
First, by establishing parity with complainants, defendants' anonymity (until conviction) ensures that we never forget the presumption of innocence, or who exactly are on trial for their liberty. Seconde, anonymity is the only way to avoid the enormous stigma that would otherwise inevitably stick to acquitted defendants.
The third point concerns the main ground put forward for opposing anonymity, that victims of rape allegedly committed by a male known to them by name are encouraged to come forward purely in consequence of hearing that a man bearing the same name as their attacker is on trial for a different rape. The incidence of this would have to be substantial enough to outweigh the primacy of the first two points. In fact, where on rare occasions other victims do come forward it is almost always as a result of recognition cues based on circumstantial similarities.
The final, and perhaps most important, point to make is that, as we contend, the prevalence of concoction is significantly higher in rape than in all other types of criminal charge. In our recent study, Rape Trials, in Criminal Law and Justice Weekly (Vol 174, No 17, April 24, 2010), we listed a huge number of established cases of concoction meticulously trawled from several years of press reports and gathered under various categories of motivation. These factors simply do not operate on anything like the same scale in other types of offence and male defendants are therefore unusually vulnerable to false rape allegations.
Last year we sought a freedom of information inquiry into recorded offences of attempting to pervert the course of justice, seeking a breakdown by falsely alleged offence type, the purpose being to discover the officially computed frequency of false rape allegations. The application was refused ostensibly on the ground of cost. At our suggestion Baroness Stern, then conducting her independent review for the Government on the handling of rape complaints, pursued the same inquiry. We understand she was similarly rebuffed.
It is to be hoped that the Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary will be less inclined to shut their eyes to inconvenient truths.
DAVID WOLCHOVER ANTHONY HEATON-ARMSTRONG
London WC2
Typo:
Second, not 'seconde'.
Unfortunately it doesn't say who the author is working for ... he says 'we' did this and so on, but there's no indication which organisation this is.
I wonder if they've heard of FRS ...
Also - this was linked on Angry Harry's site.
http://www.wesh.com/news/23991233/detail.html
Police: False Criminal Reports Must Stop
Police said false reporting has reached an epidemic level. They said they will arrest anyone who makes a false report about a crime because doing so is against the law.
"In case there is someone reading who I haven't already annoyed with my little pet theory that there are as many falsified kidnap/rape reports as there are actual ones"
I doubt anyone is annoyed by it. Although, like I said before, I'm sure there are more falsified kidnap/rape reports as there than actual ones, but there are way more acquaintance/boyfriend/husband/ex rape reports than actual ones.
Stranger rape reports are probably far, far more reliable than reports regarding someone "the victim" knows.
And this comes out in recidivism rates for convicted rapists: those convicted of stranger rape are much more likely to reoffend -- probably because many who are convicted of "date rape" never really offended in the first place.
Recidivism rates for convicted sex offenders are a hobby horse of mine, because I really think that MRAs could be making a lot of hay with those numbers. It is very difficult to explain why sex offenders have such low rates of reoffending unless you assume that a very large number of them were falsely convicted.
Any MRA criminologists or statisticians in the house?
Anonymous said...
"In case there is someone reading who I haven't already annoyed with my little pet theory that there are as many falsified kidnap/rape reports as there are actual ones"
I doubt anyone is annoyed by it. Although, like I said before, I'm sure there are more falsified kidnap/rape reports as there than actual ones, but there are way more acquaintance/boyfriend/husband/ex rape reports than actual ones.
Jul 19, 2010 3:18:00 PM
Since the authorization of the feminist piece of legislation known as " the violence against women act" of 1994, women have had the licence to falsely accuse males of "committing" violent crimes against them, even "violence by proxy" and enjoy ruining/destroying the male's life permanently. Rape just happens to be the most politicized, demonized, condemmned, sensationalized, hysteriaized, and, sexbiased and genderbiased crimes women can accuse a male of and, most of the time, accomplish their agenda(s)/goal(s)/lust(s).
ALL of law enforcement MUST WAKE THE F*CK UP AND RECOGNIZE THE REALITY OF EVERY SITUATION!
Sometimes the "female victim(s)" IS/ARE The Actual Criminal(s)!
There very well may be more false reports of rape than true ones at this point.
The Baltimore PD may have been too indulgent, not too strict.
Rape is a crime that,in seriouness, falls just below the serious act of murder. False rape accusatins MUST be punished appropriately and accordingly!
Anonymous said...
Why is it even up for discussion? Of course this liar needs to be charged and sent to prison for years.
Are the police there to be wind-up toys for a criminal's amusement?
Jul 19, 2010 12:48:00 AM
Feminists criminalized themslves from their beginnings.
"Stranger rape reports are probably far, far more reliable than reports regarding someone 'the victim' knows."
Well, I am not doubting you. I just don't know for certain. We are always told that stranger rape is very rare. The real battleground is acquaintance rape, they tell us, and ground zero is college campuses.
I no longer have an opinion as to which kind of rape is more prevalent. Every time I see a news report about a girl who supposedly was raped by a stranger, I follow up and it seems more times than not I find out it was a lie. I believe stranger rape is incredibly rare.
Acquaintance rape on campus: well, all I can say is that after an avalanche of reforms making it easier to report rape, and easier to exact a tremendous penalty on the male accused (guilty or innocent), virtually no rapes are reported as occurring. On campus after campus, burglary, robbery, and assault are all much more common. And I will tell you what: we can't do much more, if ANY more, to make reporting rape easy short of drastically altering our criminal justice system -- we're about at the limit for major reforms without opening a due process can of worms that I don't think will happen. Yet the paid sexual grievance industry insists rape is rampant on campus. All these secret rapes just aren't being reported. Paid counselors justify their existence, the existence of their rape centers and 24 hour hotlines with rape lies. So do rape motivational-type speakers who go around the country telling young men how warped masculinity is and how women don't lie about rape. And once a year each college has the equivalent of a month-long male bashing session where they talk about rape as if it is oozing from every male zipper.
It all bullshit. There is no need for such hysterics, and there never has been a need for it. The real battleground in this area: misunderstandings among kids who are drinking and having sex. Let's stop calling it rape where the goal is to expel young men, and let's start focusing on educating kids that men and women have different wants; and that women experience post-intercourse regret a lot more than men according to recent studies. I think a massive education effort at college should be undertaken -- by persons not currently employed in the sexual grievance industry -- and as part of that, the kids need to be told about the awfulness of a false rape claim. Tell the girls a bunch of horror stories from this blogs about men and families (including daughters) ruined by false rape claims.
This is why I advocate polygraphing BOTH accused and accuser.
I, for one, believe evil is equally present in BOTH genders.
I said EQUALLY.
For every woman who would make a false rape accusation there is a man who would rape.
These individuals are both EQUALLY abhorrent, and these crimes not "RARE" for either gender.
Getting away with rape is no more difficult than getting away with falsely accusing an innocent person - if you know what you are doing.
There ARE men who threaten their victims into silence with a charge of false accusation - and they succeed to varying degrees - just as there are women who threaten to make false rape accusations and succeed in varying degrees.
Let's not lose sight of this reality.
The truth is, any one of YOU would be devastated if this happened to a woman you know and love - just as false accusations devastate women who know and love FRA victims.
That's why I believe pushing for polygraphing of BOTH parties is VITAL to protect victims on either end of the accusation.
Imagine where the Rothlisberger debate would be now if both he and the accuser had been polygraphed...
There are always three sides to any story - your side, my side...and the wild factor: The Truth.
"For every woman who would make a false rape accusation there is a man who would rape."
Doubtful. Think how easy it is to lie about rape. Seriously. It takes precisely zero effort. If you don't believe me, spend a few weeks reading through this blog. People lie about everything, and it's not much of a stretch for them to lie about rape. Now think how hard it is to rape. Think of the physical effort to accomplish that act. Think of the mental state. You have to be a serious criminal to do that, which is why it is so incredibly rare.
"I, for one, believe evil is equally present in BOTH genders.
I said EQUALLY.
For every woman who would make a false rape accusation there is a man who would rape."
This isn't actually consistent, because it takes a lot more ... will, shall we say, to actually carry out a rape than it does to make a false report of rape.
Your premise is that men and women have equal potential for evil; no argument here.
Your conclusion does not follow, because rape and making a false allegation are not equivalents.
It is far easier to commit the latter.
Also, you cannot abstract this from the culture we live in, which expects and encourages women to make allegations, whether true or false.
Men are not encouraged or believed to anywhere near the same extent when they make allegations.
If they WERE, then we would likely see false allegations from both sexes at about the same rate. Equal potential for evil etc. The difference is that men aren't encouraged to act out evil in this regard, whereas women are.
"This is why I advocate polygraphing BOTH accused and accuser."
They shouldn't polygraph either because lie detectors are bullshit.
"For every woman who would make a false rape accusation there is a man who would rape."
Unlike Archivist, I don't doubt that. Rather, I'm sure that is false. Rape is rare. False accusations are common.
"You have to be a serious criminal to do that, which is why it is so incredibly rare."
Not only would one have to be a "serious criminal", but be willing and able to commit a crime with severe punishment and no rational gain.
"They shouldn't polygraph either because lie detectors are bullshit."
In reality, polygraphs are bullshit -- you are correct. In practice however, they are heavily relied upon by law enforcement, DA's and grand juries to determine whether someone should be arrested, charged, and tried.
I have been told by attorneys that those falsely accused in rape cases who take the polygraph or voice stress analysis exams and do not pass, that the non-passing results alone could be enough to get the accused indicted by a grand jury, even with everything else in the case in favor of the accused, and with the fact that polygraph results are not admissible at trial. So, it is of vital importance for every boy and man to be educated about the polygraph and the legal issues involved in criminal and civil law as well as in employment screening.
See: http://antipolygraph.org/index.shtml
Of course polygraphs are bullshit.
Of course guys get convicted on the results.
It the basis of both McDowell's and Kanin's studies, however - the threat of being polygraphed made the liars adit they were lying.
Unless anyone here wants to step up and say THAT'S bullshit.
My son passed multiple polygraphs when accused, so guess what? I DON'T think they're bullshit.
I don't believe for one minute they are iron clad - BUT. I DO believe if one party passes, and one fails, there's a GOOD chance the person telling the truth is passing, and the one lying failed.
Of course, we can't know this because it is never done under any circumstance.
You guys are starting to sound like feminists yourselves..."We guys are just too SAINTLY to sin,it's too difficult to rape, while all women are liars and it's EASY to falsely accuse.
You GOTTA be kidding.
I would think you would be on board with demanding polygraphing both parties.
It would either verify who is telling the truth, or verify polygraphs are bogus and could no longer be used on accused men.
I for one find the prosepct FACINATING and pray for the day it happens.
I think it's terrific if the polygraphs clears some innocent men, but if the tests are so accurate then why are victims often barred by law from taking them?
That implies to be that they either aren't reliable, or that the people who passed those restrictions knew perfectly well that many of the women who would be taking them are lying.
"You guys are starting to sound like feminists yourselves..."We guys are just too SAINTLY to sin,it's too difficult to rape, while all women are liars and it's EASY to falsely accuse.
You GOTTA be kidding."
Speak for yourself. I've never said that I'm perfect, but I am innocent of the crime for which I have been accused. The fact is that valid, extant, rape victims are less common than false accusations as has been determined by objective studies. You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
"I would think you would be on board with demanding polygraphing both parties.
It would either verify who is telling the truth, or verify polygraphs are bogus and could no longer be used on accused men."
It would verify nothing, because each polygraph examiner is different, and you could very well have two polygraph examiners give identical tests on identical subjects and come up with four different different results. Polygraphs and VSA tests need to be eliminated completely for both parties.
"I for one find the prosepct FACINATING and pray for the day it happens."
In the ideal world, we would have polygraphs for everyone involved in the process: the complainant, the accused, their lawyers, the judge, expert witnesses and all jury members take a polygraph to ensure the whole investigation, charge, and trial was "clean" and free from bias, corruption, and vested interest.
As for me, I want to repeal the rape shield laws, VAWA and require equal treatment of the accuser and the accused. So, if one takes a polygraph the other should follow suit. If there is a shield for the accuser, there should be a shield for the accused. The state should fund the full cost of the trial for both parties so that we no longer have to ask the rhetorical question of the accused: "how much justice can you afford?" If our justice system is interested in finding the truth, we should expect no less. I don't see it happening in my lifetime.
Nobody said that all women are liars. But it is very, very, very easy to falsely accuse, and anybody who says otherwise is either dreaming or a liar.
There is no comparison between us and the feminists. We are criticizing a legal system that treats rape much like murder and that convicts with far less evidence while perpetuating the fantasy that false accusations don't happen. How often does a false rape accuser go to prison in the United States? Even in the most well-publicized cases there is almost never a prosecution of the liar -- you can ask the victims of Duke and Hofstra.
How anyone can come in here and have the guts to tell us that we are the equivalent of feminists -- who are cheering on this vile system and pretending that rape isn't punished harshly enough, even though there are far more rape convictions here than anywhere else in the world -- is something that I don't even want to understand. It is despicable.
Those of us who were falsely accused deserve better than to be compared to those cultists.
For example, imagine that you have two groups of people: one of which supports the Russian gulags, and the other which criticizes the Russian gulags.
To say that we are like feminists is to say that the people who want to end the gulags are just as bad as those who are running them because they say, "all guards are like that."
When, in fact, nobody really is saying that! Actually, the only people who are promoting that kind of stereotypical thinking are the feminists (the people who are running the gulags).
Actually, this is like Americans opposing Russian Gulags - while turning America into the largest gulag known to mankind while sanctimoniously claiming Russian gulags are products of "The Evil Empire".
Claiming that rape is mainly fiction "cause it's such a hassle to pull off" is bull. Murder is pretty 'difficult' yet people are murdered everyday - by both men and women...and children. Cheating on taxes, rolling drunks, robbing liquor stores and 7-11's is pretty much a hassle, too.
I guess that doesn't REALLY happen, it's all fabricated, cause everyone knows it's soooo difficult to pull off...
Claiming it's "easy to make a false accusation just look at all the stories here" is bull as well - at least HALF the stories cited here come from other countries.
I stand by my contention that evil is equally distributed between the genders - but justice is not.
There is no reason for the HUGE disparity between men and women in prison except to say the law favors women - but NOT to the extent that women's false accusations "really" outnumber rape cause rape is soooo difficult to manage - unless most women now outweigh most men and have attained superior upper body strength.
Oh, I think there are explanations for the disparity between men and women in prison -- men do commit a lot of crimes that women generally do not. But this is not because women are born with inherently better character than men.
Rather, there are differences between the types of crimes that men and women commit: women are morely likely to commit subtle crimes that involve manipulation, while male criminals are more aggressive and direct.
Which only makes sense, since men have massively superior upper body strength and interact differently with other men than women do with women.
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