jimenato

I was talking about this the other night. Apparently rape involves penetration so normally women don't rape men.

bil

No, that's not what I meant. If you are both smashed, & she says the next day 'I was pissed, I wouldn't have said yes if I had been sober, it was rape.'
You can't answer 'I was pissed and don't remember a thing.'

It's still rape if she wants it to be, which doesn't strike me as fair.

johnnyone

There have been cases of male rape.

jimenato

How on earth is she going to show that she was too pissed?
I suppose in fact it could even be she who instigates it against his will (it happens!) and it could still even go against him.

jimenato

Do you mean of women raping men?

bil

I just think that it's a pretty poor show if someone can be so pissed as to be irresponsible, and then hammer some poor sod who assumed that as they had shared a bottle, sharing a bed was ok.

jimenato

Well let's hope it's not quite that simple and that there are other criteria else there's going to be an awful lot more rapists about.

HBG

Well, at least the judicial system of the Land of the Free has released the cheese eating surrender monkey on bail to try and convince the world that they are a civilised country.

Whether they later sentence the man to a thousand years in jail if he is convicted is immaterial, most of us believe in a presumption of innocence before a trial by a properly constituted court of law, and this was a blatant case of punishing an innocent person on the silly pretence that he was a flight risk.

The head of the IMF, a possible future French president, a flight risk? It's as preposterous as pretending that torturing people is in any way legal.

johnnyone

Yes

michael123

Given the reports of his rushed departure to the airport, being arrested on a plane 10 minutes before it could convey him to a country which refuses to extradite its citizens at all, the history of Polanski which the Yanks have never forgotten. Add to this mix the fact that they didn't have all his travel documents etc. personally I found it perfectly normal that in the first instance they should refuse bail.

I will be honest and add for me, presumption of his innocence is colored a bit by his prior history.

As for fair trials, do you think Huntly or Shipman (even though they were guilty) actually got fair trials, as far as I remember the UK tabloids (+ Sky) had them convicted way before they actually went on trial.

Lets face it the "perp walk" etc. is a fixture of American legal situations and they don't discriminate at all in who they inflict it on.

Finally If he had done a runner he wouldn't have been be the first high profile person to remove himself totally from the reach of law enforcement agencies.

As an aside, can I ask you, were you being ironic in referring to America as "the Land of the Free" ?

rugbymatt

Which has now been proved utter tosh....

michael123

Proved by who? I thought we weren't supposed to believe any of the reports in the press

Maybe its a just a case where we all pick the reports that suit our prejudices ;-)

rugbymatt

Well considering he went for lunch after he left the hotel with his daughter, something quite easily proved as I doubt the caught a McDonalds and as I said earlier in the thread the victim said she didn't realise who he was until days after the alleged attack I think its pretty safe to say that he didn't "bolt for a running plane on a runway"

michael123

Where the history of lunch it might be easily proved in the triall AFAIK at the moment its only been proved by statements his lawyers made, and course they always speak the truth. I've yet to read a statement from his daughter (or any other witness) confirming the lunch date.

I'm not sure why you brought up the recognition aspect, but from what I've read the victim only realized the day after, not days after, the nuance is important IMO.

I'll say it again, I'm well aware, that at the moment we are all cherry picking the reports we want to believe, mainly the ones that suit our opinions (or prejudices if you prefer), Maybe we should all just wait to see the EVIDENCE before we commit ourselves to a POV ;-)

Mitzyboy

By the time the evidence is seen though, he will already be guilty ..... thats the point of what's being said

I'm not defending him, I'm just saying that he doesn't really stand a chance the way things are going because he has already been judged