Scottish women are in a privileged rape position 

Please view this video

Scottish Women do not have this rape fear

Regrettably, you cannot use the YouTube link below as Alexander Economou or someone acting on his behalf, has persuaded Google/YouTube to ban this video to UK users of YouTube. He did this twice with my other YouTube video on my other change.org petition 'Justice for Eleanor' that I refer to below. Google/YouTube did give written assurances to my MP not to do this again without approaching me first. They have not had the decency to do this.

As I have said before, if it is worth suppressing me, it's worth seeing!

Scottish Women do not have this Rape Fear, but do you?

 

s1 Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 grants lifelong anonymity to women who report rape. Parliament granted this so that women could have the confidence to come forward with their concerns. A man accused of rape can remove this anonymity with frightening ease.

For only £8,500 or less, together with an ‘Application for Summons’ (CPR 7.2(6)) a man can apply for a private prosecution which removes this anonymity. All he has to do is make the following statements. 

• I didn’t rape her 
• She is lying 
• I am telling the truth. 

He doesn't need a crime reference number, and he doesn't even need to involve the Police or CPS in any way. 

The Magistrate's Court treats a private prosecution for a false rape allegation exactly like any other private prosecution. The Sexual Offenses Act life-long protection is meaningless. A Court Summons will be issued if the following 5 conditions are met:-

1. the alleged offence is known to law
2. the essential ingredients are prima facie present so, just his word
3. the offence is not time barred
4.  the Court has jurisdiction
5. the man has authority – most offences require no prior authority– including this one!

This Court process is not in open court; it happens 'ex parte' i. e. with the man’s input alone. The woman is not even allowed to be present, as she no locus standi or right to be heard. The first that the woman will know of this procedure is when she receives his summons to court

When his summons is issued the woman becomes a defendant in criminal proceedings and so her anonymity disappears immediately. Even if she is found not guilty her anonymity has been lost and can never be restored. Is this what Parliament intended?!  

Eleanor discovered the existence of her summons when the solicitors used by Alexander Economou emailed the summons to her. Unsurprisingly, this caused Eleanor to have a panic attack! 

'Private Prosecutions: safeguards', published by the House of Commons Justice Select Committee on 29th September 2020 warns that trying to stay the prosecution on grounds of an ‘abuse of process’ is largely a waste of time. 

This report quotes the case of R (Dacre) v the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Latham LJ held that the presence of mala fides or spite does not necessarily mean that the prosecution will meet the threshold required to qualify as an abuse of process.

Any irregularities in procedure, such as abuse of process, would be ‘resolved’ in the trial process. At that stage, the woman has gone from losing her anonymity to becoming the subject of media coverage.

In going to and from her court appearances, Eleanor took to wearing a burka to disguise herself. 

What a perfect storm for a man’s spite!

Why should any woman be forced to accept any spite from any man?!

If the above 5 conditions are met, the Magistrates’ Court is obliged to issue the summons. If the Magistrates’ court fails to do so, the man can challenge this via Judicial Review.

The man can use the process of applying for Judicial Review to create bad publicity against the woman. Please remember, Judicial Review does not consider the merits of any matter, it only considers whether due process has been followed. 

If the above 5 conditions are met, then the Magistrates’ Court is obliged to issue the summons! 

How does this help women who need to report rape?! 

Well, if you are in Scotland, you need have no fear! 

According to this same report, ‘In Scotland the consent of the Lord Advocate is required to bring a private prosecution for any offence and, as a consequence, private prosecutions are exceptionally rare.’ In practice, the Lord Advocate passes all private prosecutions on to the Police. If the Police consider a prosecution has no merit, it is stopped at that point. 

The Police did not support Alexander Economou’s private prosecution of Eleanor, and they made this very, very clear. So, if Eleanor had met Alexander Economou in the capital of Scotland rather than the capital of England, Eleanor could have made her report and still be alive today!

Why can’t all women in the United Kingdom not enjoy the same rights as the women of Scotland? 

At the very least, there should be a requirement to seek the permission of the Attorney General before a prosecution is commenced and a summons issued. There is a list of over 50 offences that require the prior consent of the Attorney General

– why not this one!

This would preserve a woman’s statutory right to anonymity and remove even the possibility of a man using a private prosecution to intimidate a woman. It should ensure that the high standards for Public Prosecutions apply rather than the 5 very basic conditions above. The Attorney General could follow the Lord Advocate’s example and refuse permission if the police find no merit

As the charity Victim Support makes clear

'Victim Support is concerned in principle about the use of private prosecutions against rape complainants. In particular, we are concerned that the use of a private prosecution in such circumstances enables the subject of the rape complaint to lawfully take actions which would necessarily intimidate the complainant.'

The Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood has just published a consultation paper on the use of private prosecutions. 

This document states 

‘Individuals who bring a prosecution on their own behalf are therefore out of the scope of the proposals in this consultation.’ 

If we do nothing, not only can a spiteful man continue to rely on these ridiculous 5 conditions, when he is accused of rape, but he will be able to say that the Will of Parliament has now changed.

 - It wasn’t even relevant to be considered in this consultation!

If we do nothing, a women will no longer be able to rely on her right to life-long anonymity when reporting rape

What is that going to do for future rape reporting?! 

If you think that private prosecutions could never be used in this way, please look at my earlier petition on Change.org 'Justice for Eleanor'. 

JusticeForEleanor

Please sign this petition to call on Shabana Mahmood, Lord Chancellor, to enact Eleanor's Law.

Eleanor's Law

Eleanor's Law requires all private prosecutions for supposedly lying about rape or serious sexual offences to obtain the prior authority of the Attorney General. The statutory right to life-long anonymity for rape complainants is to remain intact until conviction with all avenues of appeal having been exhausted.

This should ensure that the higher standards used in public prosecutions should apply to all private prosecutions 

It is appalling that a man can so easily frustrate the Will of Parliament and perverse that he can use the courts to do so, even with an ‘acceptable’ level of spite.

The existing safeguards are inadequate because they only start to operate when it’s too late, i.e. after his summons has been issued and the brave woman's anonymity destroyed. 

The Guardian of this inadequate safeguard, the CPS, are themselves not sufficiently competent, as the many failings that I have identified in my earlier petition prove. Please view my video  Justice for Eleanor

I would not have succeeded in the libel case (Economou v de Freitas 2016 EWHC 1853 (QB)) I was forced to endure by Alexander Economou, the man whom Eleanor alleged raped her (he strenuously maintains his innocence) if I had not had what the libel judge described as ‘a sufficient factual basis’ for criticising the CPS (para 253).

This libel judge also considered that the use of private prosecutions in this way to be a matter of public interest or as he put it 'the desirability of permitting private prosecutions for allegedly false complaints of rape, or for that matter, sexual crime more generally' (para 149) 

I have launched this Petition on the Eleventh Anniversary of Eleanor taking her own life because of this loophole.

How many more women need to die before this loophole is plugged?! Please support this petition so we can plug this loophole together and please support my earlier petition 

JusticeForEleanor 

so we can expose the failings of the Crown Prosecution Service.

For example, there is little point in relying on the CPS if their evaluation of consent can mean that the words 'No Sex' foreshadow agreement to a sexual attack!