22-year-old charged with wasting police time
Published: 05/10/2010
A WOMAN has been charged with wasting police time after allegedly claiming to have been raped in Aberdeen.
Charlene Stott, 22, allegedly told police she had been sexually assaulted on July 31 at Woolmanhill Hospital, Aberdeen.
She was charged with causing Grampian Police to launch an investigation when she knew the claim was false.
Stott, whose address was listed in court papers as 28 Lemon Place, Aberdeen, made no plea in relation to the charge when the case called at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
She will face the charges again later this month.
Link:http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/1948275?UserKey=
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8 comments:
It is a perversion of a community to not charge false rape accusations. By not charging false rape accusations it enables young women to say they have been raped when their boyfriends break up with them; which is a perverted use of our legal system.
Anonymous - "It is a perversion of a community to not charge false rape accusations."
Um...You might want to reread the last two paragraphs of the story:
"Stott, whose address was listed in court papers as 28 Lemon Place, Aberdeen, made no plea in relation to the charge when the case called at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
She will face the charges again later this month."
Yes, when police and prosecutors fail to charge, not only is the true prep let off the hook, but the exact wrong message is sent out - that woman can still get away with using FRA for whatever selfish reason they might have.
Thus, when, as we see more and more coming out of the UK, woman are charged, and charged at the felony level, the APPROPRIATE response we should have here (at the FRS) is commend the PROPER response and the appropriate level of concern shown by authorities.
[Seriously!?!? Do we want to end up looking like a bunch of illiterate yahoos who cannot even be bothered to read and understand the stories posted?]
8:14:00 AM
slwerner said...
"Yes, when police and prosecutors fail to charge, not only is the true prep let off the hook"
The Prep? I'm sure the "perp" is what you meant but, I'm almost certain "the prep" may be how the prosecution may have seen the real victim of crime. "The perp/The "prep" is how many ambitious prosecutors see males accused of sexual crimes and other crimes for which females accuse males of.
Anonymous - "The Prep? I'm sure the "perp" is what you meant"
Yes, "perp" (damned auto-correction).
But, I'm curious about these "ambitious prosecutors". What, exactly, do you believe they hope to achieve in selectively prosecuting "sex crimes"? [I know about Nifong, but, the reality is that his attempt at a wrongful prosecution was as much about race (to win black votes) as it was about a false rape].
I'm sure there must be other examples of how some struggling prosecutor found fame and success simply because of the choice to prosecute a rape case? Maybe you'd care to suggest a few?
Let me just point out a couple of myths about rape prosecutions that have come up from time to time here.
First, there is no "extra" money handed out for prosecuting rapes (above other crimes). Rapes are difficult to prosecute, not to mention expensive. Compared to other felony crimes, they disproportionately tax a DA's budget.
Secondly, prosecutors don't make a name for themselves by prosecuting a rape case. It's been suggested that a prosecutor can "set themselves up" by winning just one. Well, the fact is that rape cases are a "mine-field" for prosecutors. Outside of violent stranger-rapes with DNA evidence, there is a rather low rate of conviction (especially in those “he said/she said” scenarios), so prosecutors don't get to "pad" their stats with rape trials - their stats are likely to take a serious "hit" if they wish to selectively take rape cases to trial.
And, there are considerable "down-sides" for a prosecutor who is unfortunate enough to have the typical date-rape or statutory-rape case land on their desk (other than the largest jurisdictions which may have sex-crime units, rapes are treated as just another felony case, and randomly assigned amongst a pool of prosecutors). There's often a fervent demand on the part of the alleging victim to prosecute, even when the evidence is weak or virtually no-existent. Prosecutors must explain their decisions to decline to prosecute such cases to their elected DA -- who will likely be expected to answer to the public [in other threads, I've mentioned Ken Buck. He did not chose to decline to prosecute that controversial case, that decision was presented to him by four of his deputy DA's – two of them women. Buck, as the elected DA in charge, was, so to say, the point at which the “buck stopped”, and he had to defend the decision to the alleging victim and to the public].
Many of the rape cases they get were simply those which the police did not want to take the heat for not pursuing, so they were passed on to the prosecutor to let them “deal with it”. Not the sort of situations that lend themselves to “career enhancement”.
If an alleging victim is not happy with a prosecutors desire to seek a plea deal, they can make a lot of trouble – even career-ending trouble – for that prosecutor. Many cases are taken to trial with the full expectation of an acquittal, simply because the “victim” demanded it.
I know that many here will chose not to believe me in regards to this issue. But, if any are brave enough to do a little research, they can see for themselves.
Rapes are but a small fraction of the crimes to be dealt with, and not particularly amenable to any form of “career” enhancement.
Mr. Werner, false rapes are hard to prosecute. By enabling the false rape culture we are now in, it trivialises real rapes, and floods the system with so many false rapes that it seems to the illiterate willfully ignorant; that "rapes are hard to prosecute", when in reality real rapes are fairly straight forward.
Again when you pervert the meaning of rape, that again perverts the truth to make it seem like "Rapes are hard to prosecute".
Anonymous - "...it seems to the illiterate willfully ignorant; that "rapes are hard to prosecute", when in reality real rapes are fairly straight forward."
I never said anything even close to "rapes are hard to prosecute".
If you'll re-read my post, you'll find that I'm suggesting that rape prosecutions are neither a financial windfall, nor a guaranteed career-builder.
Rape ids a broad term (unfortunately), such that it is used to describe the situation in which a woman is grabbed, drug into the bushes, held at knife-point, and subjected to unwanted forcible sex; and also the mis-communications in the course of a couple dating in which he thought she was willing, but she insists that she was not. It is the latter which make up most of the rape cases that a DA will ever see. (Real violent stranger rapes are less likley to ever reach the DA because real rapists take precautions so as to not be identified and caught - but women tend to know who they're dating -- or someone knows who they hooked up with at the party).
"He said/she said" rapes are not difficult to prosecute - there's actually little work to do as there is seldom any evidence beyond the woman's accusation to present. What is difficult (and seems to be getting ever harder) is getting conviction in such cases. Along with a lack of evidence, there are often serious issues with the alleged victims credibility (I’ve tried to explain before that prosecutors are not tasked with determining guilt or innocence – that’s the juries job – so, even if they doubt the allegation is entirely true, unless they have some evidence to back up that belief, they don’t have the luxury of simply finding the defendant “not guilty” and dismissing the case), which will increase the difficulty in convincing a jury.
What they will often do is “decline to prosecute” a case in which they doubt they can get a conviction (without editorializing about whether or not they believe the accusation), or in which they strongly suspect that the alleging victim intends to lie while under oath (they are not allowed to suborn perjury, under penalty of punishments including being disbarred). And, sometimes, if they do believe that the woman was forced, they will offer to let the accused plead to lesser charges.
Sometime women accept these decisions without complaint (it may be that they were raped yet understand the reality that a jury will not be convinced, or it may be that they weren’t raped, and understand the reality that a jury will not be convinced). But sometimes, they go “ballistic”. When they do so, there’s bound to be trouble. So, if they demand that it go to trial, it likely will – with no expectation of a conviction (of course, a jury can still chose to find him guilty).
Actually putting on the case is not what is difficult for a prosecutor. It’s often far more difficult to deal with the alleged victim.
But, again, I never claimed that "rapes are hard to prosecute", as you contend.
Many real rapes are expensive to prosecute, requiring DNA tests (and retests) as well as expert witness testimony, which will come out of the DA’s annual budget (not from a money tree, grown to finance rape prosecutions).
Mr Werner, as a victim of a false rape accusation, i have understood how disturbingly easy it is for a girl to accuse a guy of raping her for no other reason than she was late for a curfew. It was also extremely disturbing watching the wheels of law enforcement trying to knifong me into prison. Im more angry at the perverted law enforcement who refused to protect the innocent than i am at her for her lie. Sir, the only reason im not in jail was she could not keep her lies straight, and even then the perverted law enforcement tried to get her story straight for her until i threatened to get a lawyer.
Knifong perverts who simply refuse to protect the innocent, and refuse to protect the constitution, have no place in a sound American legal system.
S - "Knifong perverts who simply refuse to protect the innocent, and refuse to protect the constitution, have no place in a sound American legal system."
What's that have to do with either the fact that A) the woman in the lead story was charged- and faces additional charges; or B) the relative effort and expense necessary to prosecute a rape case.
Yes, you got screwed-over, but your case is not every case.
Rape cases are moved forward, justly or not, not because LE is out to "get men", nor are they making money by pursuing rape cases. Further, prosecutors are neither getting rich nor making names for themselves by targeting rape cases.
They may not always see what we believe (as "Monday morning quarterbacks") they should have. They may suffer from white-knighting instincts when it comes to women. But, they are not driven by a profit motive nor the allure of fame. Rape cases are seldom an easy thing to have to deal with - especially "he said/she said". evidence - either way - is hard to find, and the alleging victim is often agitating for "justice" - and there's no way an police officer, detective, or prosecutor who wants to keep their job is going to ignore a woman who's demanding action. Sorry, it may not be fair and just, but it is reality. They all know the trouble they can end up in, and they have "victims rights" and "women's issues" groups organized to back them up in making trouble.
On the other hand, there are no organized efforts to advocate for always charging false accusers. I'm not aware of a single instance of a police or DA's ever getting noticeable opposition to their decisions not to charge FRA's. In fact, we can look at the two stories on either side of this one and see that the decisions to prosecute are much more likely to meet with organized opposition than are decision not to (look back at the reaction to the Gail Sherwood prosecution as well - straight up FRA, no ambiguity, and she was caught on tape - still, the women's rights agitators were up in arms over the numbers of women being prosecuted.
That more and more prosecution for FRA are now taking place is something we ought to be taking note of and encouraging more of; not burying our collective heads in the sand, pretending we done notice, and continuing to declare all of LE the "enemy" - as if doing so will somehow help the situation.
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