Some rare good news in The Guardian. The start of the piece:
The Ministry of Justice has rejected calls for a ban on rape complainants’ sexual history being revealed in court, saying cross-examination should continue to be allowed in exceptional circumstances.
The MoJ report did however recommend that the Crown Prosecution Service update its mandatory training for prosecutors and asked the criminal procedure rule committee to review the relevant courtroom rules.
Concerns about the way section 41 of the 1999 Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act was being operated emerged after the acquittal of the footballer Ched Evans last year.
Evans’s retrial heard evidence from two other men who testified about the complainant’s sexual preferences and the language she used during sex.
The Labour MP Harriet Harman proposed altering the law in order to prevent those who make allegations of rape from being questioned in court about their past relationships and sexual history.
Some months ago a feminist organization – I can’t remember which – claimed to have undertaken some research showing that it was customary for rape complainants’ sexual history to be revealed in court. I assumed it was fraudulent feminist research – they would presumably have had a bias to selecting such trials, exaggerating their proportion of all rape trials – and the Guardian article proves me right. Another extract:
Section 41 restricts the circumstances in which evidence relating to a complainant’s sexual history can be introduced. It was claimed that victims of sexual offences could be discouraged from reporting attacks to police if they were at risk of having intimate details exposed in court, albeit anonymously.
The defence has to make an application to the court to introduce any evidence or questions about a complainant’s sexual history. The application is then decided upon by the judge in the case.
The inquiry, carried out by the Attorney General’s Office and the MoJ, found the law on such lines of questioning in sexual offence trials was working effectively. The report analysed more than 300 rape cases completed in 2016 in England and Wales.
It showed that in 92% of them, no evidence of the complainant’s sexual history was introduced by the defence. Applications to introduce such evidence were only made in 13% of the cases. Of the 40 applications made by the defence, in 12 cases the prosecution either agreed or partially agreed.
Justice for Men & Boys 
Probably the first ever defeat for Harman. Let’s hope it sets a precedent.
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Justice must be open and transparent. For both complainant and defendant. For litigation concerning personal matters and for commercial litigation. In every case without exception.
Why? Because secrecy of any kind is a very profound hindrance to the law being an arbiter of the truth. By definition, secrecy means zero oversight and zero oversight has in irreversible progression to a Star Chamber operated for the benefit of the Inquisition.
How? Secrecy (1) obfuscates failure and partisan character of the court process, i.e. every caltrop thrown before the defendant & every assistance offered to the complainant, and (2) secrecy prevents the body politic from having any meaningful oversight of the judiciary, which allows judicial judgements to be widely ridiculed, thereby further bringing the law into disrepute.
Complainant sexual history is highly pertinent in the prosecution of alleged sex crimes. Especially for sex offences above all other types of offence, because in many such cases there is zero forensic evidence. Where there is zero forensic evidence, the court is obliged to weigh one party’s word against the other. So, it is VERY IMPORTANT that sexual history ought to be allowed IN ALL CASES without exception.
Moreover, those who support the right for the defendant to be shrouded by anonymity – which is at first glance a reasonable measure given the fact of complainant anonymity – are misguided. For, to offer defendant anonymity would be to take the law yet further in the wrong direction.
For the sake of justice, neither complainant nor defendant ought to be entitled to anonymity. The principle of open justice requires that no one is entitled to anonymity. We urgently need to return to the status quo prior to 1976, when neither complainant and nor defendant was entitled to any special privileges before the law.
The way to enable safe and secure convictions and the way to prevent false allegations is the same: there must be the greatest possible transparency at every stage of the judicial process. If we were to implement the greatest possible transparency, then convictions would be very much safer. Because convictions would be much safer, we could begin to implement meaningful & harsh punishments that would serve as real & effective deterrents to sex crime. In summary:
1. Neither complainant nor defendant to be entitled to anonymity;
2. Sexual history to be allowed in all cases without exception;
3. No restriction whatsoever on the press & journalism reporting any matter in the courts.
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“The Labour MP Harriet Harman proposed altering the law in order to prevent those who make allegations of rape from being questioned in court about their past relationships and sexual history.”
That woman should be banned from any work on sex crimes issues, since she appears incapable of designing a justice system that isn’t a conveyor belt to prison for the accused.
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Thank goodness as can be seen in the Allan case. One of the excuses for hiding the phone records was that they were “intimate”. Of course no one thinks of protecting the intimacy of the male defendant.
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Or indeed his freedom
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