London conference – there will be no internet livestreaming

There has been some speculation as to whether there might be internet livestreaming of the 22 presentations at the London conference. A number of people have held back from ordering tickets, in the hope of watching the presentations ‘live’ on the internet, at little or no cost. I can now confirm the conference presentations will not be livestreamed.

There are a number of reasons for the decision, but one key reason is the conference must be self-financing. This means we must maximise ticket sales, and livestreaming would reduce ticket sales. We wish it were otherwise, nothing would have given us more pleasure than livestreaming. Hopefully the day will come when demand for tickets for men’s issues conferences will be at a level that will allow for livestreaming to happen, but we’re not there yet.

We are, of course, sympathetic towards people who cannot attend the conference, for financial or other reasons. So we’ll be posting the presentations onto our YouTube channel in the course of the days and weeks following the event, once they’ve been edited. Hannah Wallen, an American Honey Badger, will be making an official record of the conference and associated activities, in terms of both a video and still photographs.

Video recording and taking of photographs will not be permitted in the conference room or adjoining covered balcony during the course of the conference, but the venue is a very large one, so people will have plenty of opportunities to take photographs and video footage outside those areas.

The list of speakers is here, and you can book your ticket(s) here. It is currently planned to stop selling tickets at 12:00 GMT on 5 June, giving us sufficient time to have the high-security passes produced. Tickets won’t be available to buy at the conference.

Woman who said she was raped by four students at college ball who were then cleared won’t be prosecuted for making a false allegation

This seems a particularly appropriate time to post links to a number of key articles relating to women making false rape allegations:

13 reasons women lie about being raped (Janet Bloomfield)

6 dangerous rape myths (Hannah Wallen)

10 reasons false rape allegations are common (Jonathan Taylor)

Our thanks to Francis for this. Excerpts:

A spokesman for Gloucester Police said: ‘We will continue to support the victim through what is and has been an extremely traumatic experience’…

Prosecutors offered no evidence against Thady Duff, Leo Mahon and Patrick Foster, all 22, and James Martin, 20, who had denied charges of rape and sexual assault…

Police revealed the victim will not face any action for making a false allegation ‘because there has been no doubt the incident happened.’ [This is ridiculous, even by the barrel-scraping standards of police statements in relation to sexual abuse allegations. If the sex was consensual, as now seems likely, in what sense did an ‘incident’ happen, which would justify not taking an action against the woman for making a false allegation?]

‘The central issue in this case has always been that of consent’, a spokesman for Gloucestershire police told MailOnline. ‘We will continue to support the victim through what is and has been an extremely traumatic experience.’… [The true victims in this case are the four young men. We can be very sure the Gloucestershire police haven’t been ‘supporting’ these victims, they aren’t now, and they never will, because penis.]

Officers are also facing questions over why it took 13 months to charge the men, with lawyers alleging evidence had been ‘withheld’ by officers before the trial. This included messages taken from the victim’s phone hinting that she may have consented…

The young men were arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault after the drunken sex session on the night of the £85-a-head ball at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in 2014. The college is known as the Oxbridge of the countryside. A ‘pornographic’ video of the act was shared on social messaging app Snapchat – leading the woman involved to tell police she had been raped…

Detectives were also said to have ‘buried’ text messages sent by the woman which said she was worried she would ‘look bad’ if the sex tape got out… [Will the detectives be charged with perverting the course of justice? Hahahahaha. No, this type of perverting the course of justice is  fine when employed against men suspected of sexual abuse of women, regardless of the absence of any supporting evidence.]

Key details that raised questions about the alleged rape victim’s credibility were ‘airbrushed’ out by police, it was claimed last night. Five months after the Royal Agricultural University’s May Ball, where she said she was raped by the four young men, the woman was involved in a sex session with an Army officer which led to the soldier being accused of rape by another woman.

It is understood the complainant in the May Ball case was in the same Army barracks room when the soldier was alleged to have raped another woman. Initially the accuser said they had consensual sex but changed her story later to support the other woman’s rape accusation.

The soldier was court martialled but cleared of rape and sexual assault charges after she gave ‘different accounts’ of the alleged rape…

Defence barristers acting for the four men argued the case showed the woman’s interest in group sex and demanded to know why neither they, nor the Crown Prosecution Service, had been told about it.

A spokesman for Accused.me.uk, the support group for victims of false allegations, said the young men should have been given life-long anonymity unless they had been convicted – just like the woman who made the complaint.

He said: ‘Why should their lives be for ever associated with these disgusting allegations?

‘The next time they go for a job, or go on a date, these stories will stick to them.

‘The fact that they were put on a trial which then collapsed illustrates the hell that many thousands of us are put through by the police and legal system each year.’

A moving interview with Kevin Vardy, who suffers from terminal prostate cancer

Kevin Vardy is a remarkable man, the instigator of an online petition relating to the need for a national screening programme for prostate cancer, which has so far attracted over 53,000 signatories.

Our thanks to Jon for loading this (12:45) onto our YouTube channel. It’s drawn from interviews on BBC Radio Lancashire yesterday morning, and we recommend you read the short description under the file first.