Our thanks to Ray for this. A Scottish judge with a backbone has given a custodial sentence to a young woman on a single count of making a false rape accusation. About damned time a judge did this. Far too many women walk free from court with suspended sentences. The sentence is only for 22 months, and doubtless she’ll walk free long before that. We’d wish the sentence to be for at least five years, to send a clear message to women considering making false rape accusations. From the article:
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard at the time how she had falsely accused her grandfather of raping her when she was a child so she could get her hands on inheritance money. She eventually admitted she had made up the sex attack claims – but only after her innocent grandfather had spent time in a police cell following the allegations. The false claims wasted dozens of hours of police time and cost taxpayers more than £3,000.
At the time, sheriff Graeme Buchanan told her: ‘False allegations of rape and other sexual offences are very serious because they put doubts in the minds of jurors in genuine cases and they subject innocent people such as Mr Ritchie to a terrifying ordeal of suspicion and investigation by police.
‘What you did to Mr Ritchie was truly evil and despicable and there is only one appropriate sentence for this behaviour and that is imprisonment.’
During her sentencing, she showed no remorse as she left the court dock in handcuffs – smiling at her friends in the public gallery.
We keep hearing the narrative from judges along the lines of this one, that ‘false allegations of rape and other sexual offences are very serious because they put doubts in the minds of jurors in genuine cases…’. Does anyone think that these women care about that for one second? And surely any reasonable juror should have doubts – what’s the alternative, considering women as incapable of lying? Only after exercising reasonable doubt can jurors come to a considered view on whether rape allegations are ‘genuine’. So the narrative is utterly pointless on two counts.
Let’s return to the last sentence in our extract:
During her sentencing, she showed no remorse as she left the court dock in handcuffs – smiling at her friends in the public gallery.
How does that square with the final sentence of the article?
Representing the former Aberdeen Royal Infirmary staff nurse, solicitor Lynne Freeland said her client was aware she had ‘torn lives apart’ with her greedy, selfish and cruel actions.
I guess she was ‘aware’ that she’d ‘torn lives apart’, but just didn’t give a damn. And what compensation will her grandfather get for the vile allegations she made against him, leading him to be detained in a police cell? None.
